si-V:-'--:  •'•'•■.■;■»■•■■■■• 


WMM 


Division     ^5  2. 5  5  5 
Section       rr  .  £i  1 7 


A  Short  Introduction  to 
the  Gospels 


By 

ERNEST  DEWITT  BURTON 

professor  of 

new  testament  interpretation   in 

The   University  of  Chicago 


U 


CHICAGO 

THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO  PRESS 
1904 


Copyright,  1904 
By  Ernest  D.  Burton 


May,    1904 


PREFACE 

The  chief  purpose  of  this  httle  volume  is  to  place 
before  the  student  of  the  gospels  those  facts  concerning 
the  purpose  and  point  of  view  of  each  of  them  which  are 
most  necessary  for  an  intelligent  reading  and  study  of 
them.  A  book  of  narrative  character,  containing  a  record 
of  facts,  has  a  value  independent  of  the  point  of  view  and 
purpose  of  the  author.  Yet  few  books  are  so  wholly 
objective  in  character,  so  devoted  to  the  simple  reporting 
of  facts,  so  devoid  of  all  aim  to  use  these  facts  to  achieve  a 
result,  that  an  insight  into  the  mind  of  the  writer  does 
not  contribute  to  an  intelligent  reading  of  them.  To  us 
today  the  highest  value  of  the  gospels  is  in  the  testimony 
they  bring  us  concerning  the  deeds,  words,  and  character 
of  the  Lord  Jesus.  Yet  it  is  by  no  means  idle  curiosity 
that  impels  us  to  discover  all  that  we  can  concerning  the 
specific  aim  with  which  the  several  evangelists  wrote. 
Not  only  is  the  discovery  of  the  situation  out  of  which 
each  gospel  arose,  and  of  the  end  which  the  writer  of  each 
sought  to  accomplish,  a  contribution  to  the  inner  history 
of  the  early  church,  precisely  as  a  knowledge  of  similar 
facts  concerning  an  epistle  of  Paul  constitutes  such  a  con- 
tribution, but  the  discovery  of  the  angle  of  vision  from 
which,  and  the  medium  through  which,  the  writer  looked 
at  Jesus,  assists  us  to  interpret  each  of  the  several  repre- 
sentations of  Jesus,  and  so  to  relate  these  one  to  another 
that  from  them  all  there  may  emerge  the  true  historic 
figure  of  Jesus  the  Christ. 

In  the  endeavor  thus  to  discover  the  proper  point  of 


iv  PREFACE 

view  from  which  to  study  each  gospel,  it  is  the  gospel 
itself  that  is  our  most  valuable  source  of  information. 
All  that  tradition  transmits  to  us  concerning  the  identity 
of  the  author  and  his  aim  in  writing  is  sure  to  be  seized 
upon  with  eagerness,  all  the  greater  because  of  the  mea- 
gerness  of  such  testimony,  and  is  rightly  scrutinized  with 
the  most  diligent  attention  that  it  may  be  made  to  yield 
all  the  information  that  it  can  supply.  Yet  at  its  best  tra- 
dition tells  us  but  little,  and  that  little  only  the  record 
of  ancient  opinion.  The  internal  evidence  of  the  gospels 
themselves  —  not  the  few  assertions  which  they  contain 
concerning  authorship  and  the  like,  but  the  constant 
reflection  on  every  page  of  the  point  of  view  and  aim  of 
the  evangelist  —  comes  to  us  at  first  hand,  and,  if  we  are 
able  to  interpret  it  correctly,  yields  us  evidence  that  cannot 
be  impeached. 

It  is  to  this  internal  evidence  that  special  attention  is 
directed  in  the  following  pages.  Of  the  subjects  here 
treated,  that  which  is  most  necessary  and  useful  for  the 
interpretation  of  the  several  gospels  is  a  knowledge  of 
the  purpose,  point  of  view,  and  plan  of  the  gospel.  These 
matters  are  central  in  the  present  treatment.  As  sub- 
sidiary to  the  search  for  them,  the  evidence  afforded  in 
the  gospels  themselves  concerning  the  writer  and  the 
readers  for  whom  he  wrote  is  examined.  The  brief 
quotations  of  ancient  tradition  respecting  the  authorship 
of  the  books  fill  in  the  present  treatment  the  place  of  least 
importance,  serving  only  to  suggest  the  relation  of  the 
external  evidence  to  that  internal  evidence  which  is  here 
the  almost  exclusive  subject  of  study.  The  full  presenta- 
tion, scrutiny,  and  weighing  of  the  external  testimony  lie 
quite  beyond  the  scope  of  this  book,  the  specific  purpose  of 


PREFACE  V 

which  is  to  throw  upon  the  gospels  the  light  concerning 
their  origin  and  purpose  which  emanates  from  these 
gospels  themselves. 

The  chapter  on  "  The  Relation  of  the  Synoptic  Gos- 
pels to  One  Another  "  is  of  a  somewhat  different  character 
from  the  others.  It  is  intended  to  be  no  more  than  an 
introduction  to  the  subject  with  which  it  deals.  To  have 
presented  the  evidence  on  this  subject  with  even  that 
degree  of  fulness  and  detail  with  which  the  chief  topics 
of  the  other  chapters  have  been  presented  would  have 
expanded  the  book  beyond  the  moderate  limits  within 
which  it  was  desired  to  keep  it,  and  would  have  made  it 
less  adapted  to  the  use  which  it  is  intended  to  serve,  viz., 
as  an  introduction  to  the  gospels  for  the  use  of  students 
in  college  or  in  the  first  year  of  a  theological  course.  It 
is  the  hope  of  the  author  at  a  later  time  to  deal  more 
adequately  with  this  important  subject. 

Of  the  several  chapters  contained  in  this  volume  all 
except  the  fourth  were  originally  published  in  the  Biblkal 
World  for  1898,  1899.  and  1900.  They  were  subse- 
quently reprinted  in  pamphlet  form  under  the  title  The 
Purpose  and  Plan  of  the  Four  Gospels.  They  are  now 
again  reprinted,  having  undergone  considerable  revision, 
but  without  material  change  of  plan  or  content. 

Ernest  D.  Burton. 

Chicago,   April.    1904. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Chapter       I.     The    Gospel    according   to 

Matthew         .  .  .  1-26 

Chapter     II.     The    Gospel    according    to 

AIark      ....       27-45 

Chapter  III.     The    Gospel    according    to 

Luke       ....       46-79 

Chapter  IV.  The  Relation  of  the  Syn- 
optic Gospels  to  One 
Another  .  .  .       80-98 

Chapter     V.     The    Gospel    according    to 

John       ....     99-141 

Index  ........    143, 144 


CHAPTER   I 

THE   GOSPEL  ACCORDING   TO   MATTHEW 
I.       THE    AUTHOR 

The  first  gospel  does  not  itself  name  its  author.  The 
title  as  it  stands  in  extant  manuscripts  and  in  modern 
editions  comes,  not  from  the  hand  of  the  author,  but  from 
some  later  scribe.  Nor  is  the  writer's  name,  as  trans- 
mitted by  tradition,  our  first  concern.  What  we  seek  first 
and  chiefly  is  not  his  name  or  identity,  but  his  character- 
istics and  point  of  view ;  and  for  these  the  gospel  itself  is 
our  best,  indeed  almost  our  only,  source  of  information. 
To  this,  accordingly,  we  turn. 

I.  His  nationality  as  it  appears  in  the  book  itself. — 
Several  classes  of  facts  bear  convergent  testimony  indicat- 
ing that  the  writer  of  the  gospel  is  a  Palestinian  Jew. 

a)  Thus  he  shows  himself  familiar  with  the  geog- 
raphy of  Palestine.  See,  for  example,  2:1,  Bethlehem  of 
Judea,  distinguished  from  Bethlehem  in  the  tribe  of 
Zebulun;  2  :  23,  "  a  city  called  Nazareth,"  a  phrase  which 
at  first  suggests  that  the  place  is  unfamiliar  to  the  writer 
and  his  readers,  but  is  probably  intended  to  call  attention 
to  the  name  and  its  relation  to  the  reference  about  to  be 
made  to  the  Old  Testament;  3:1,  "the  wilderness  of 
Judea  ;  "  ^  3:5,  the  circuit  of  the  Jordan  (cf.  Gen.  13:10); 
3:13.  Galilee  and  the  Jordan;  4:12,  13,  Nazareth  and 
Capernaum,  and  the  relation  of  these  to  the  ancient  tribal 
boundaries;    4:23-25,   Galilee  and   the  lands  adjacent; 

'  Some  have  found  in  this  expression  an  inaccurate  use  of  terms, 
perhaps  betraying  ignorance  of  the  region.     In   Tudg.   i  :  i6  the  wilder- 


2  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  MATTHEW 

8:5,  22i,  28,  the  country  of  the  Gadarenes^  placed  on  the 

ness  of  Judah  is  spoken  of  as  being  in  the  south  of  Arad.  Arad  is 
located  by  Rofsinson  (Biblical  Researches,  Vol.  II,  p.  loi  ;  cf.  Smith, 
Dictionary  of  the  Bible)  about  sixteen  miles  south  of  Hebron.  But  in 
Josh.  15:61  f.  Judah's  territory  is  said  to  include  "in  the  wilderness" 
Beth-arabah,  Middin,  and  Secacah.  Now  Beth-arabah  is  also  mentioned 
as  belonging  to  Benjamin  (Josh.  18:  22),  which  indicates  that  the  border 
between  Judah  and  Benjamin  ran  through  it.  The  exact  site  of  Beth- 
arabah  is  unknown,  but  the  location  of  the  border  line  is  approximately 
shown  by  being  defined  in  Josh.  18:  19  as  drawn  from  the  head  of  the 
Dead  Sea,  and  as  passing  through  Beth-hoglah,  a  town  which  is  in  the 
Jordan  valley,  about  two  miles  north  of  the  sea.  This  indicates  that 
the  wilderness  of  Judah  extended  as  far  north  as  the  head  of  the  Dead 
Sea.  or  a  little  farther.  But  the  region  north  of  this  was  also  desert 
(see  JosEPHUs,  Jewish  War,  III,  10,  7,  fin.;  cf.  IV,  8,  2;  cf.  also 
Mark  1:4,  5,  which  indicates  that  the  Jordan  ran  through  the  wilder- 
ness), and  when  the  boundary  between  Judah  and  Benjamin  was  no 
longer  marked,  and  the  territory  of  both  tribes  included  in  Judea,  as 
was  the  case  in  New  Testament  times,  it  is  very  probable  that  the  term 
"  wilderness  of  Judea  "  would  cover  both  the  desolate  region  west  of  the 
Dead  Sea  and  so  much  of  the  barren  region  north  of  the  sea  as  lay 
within  Judea.  It  must  be  observed  that  Matthew  does  not  necessarily 
include  any  portion  of  the  Jordan  valley  in  the  wilderness  of  Judea 
(cf.  3:1,  5,  6).  His  language  would  be  consistent  with  an  intention  to 
represent  John's  preaching  as  beginning  in  the  wilderness  of  Judea,  and 
as  being  transferred  to  the  Jordan  valley  when  he  began  to  baptize 
(cf.  again  Mark  1:4,  5,  which  uses  the  term  "  wilderness  "  without  the 
addition  of  Judea).  But  it  is,  perhaps,  more  probable  that  he  intended 
the  term  "  wilderness  of  Judea  "  to  cover  both  regions. 

-  The  phenomena  presented  by  Matt.  8 :  28  and  the  parallel  passages, 
Mark  5:1;  Luke  8  :  26,  have  not  been  explained  in  a  wholly  satisfactory 
way.  In  each  of  the  gospels  there  is  manuscript  authority  for  all  three 
readings  —  Gadarenes,  Gerasenes,  Gergesenes.  The  Revisers  follow 
Westcott  and  Hort  in  adopting  Gadarenes  in  Matthew,  Gerasenes  in 
Mark,  and  Gerasenes  (marg.  Gergesenes,  with  Tischendorf)  in  Luke.  The 
conditions  of  the  narrative  are  fulfilled  on  the  eastern  shore,  near  a  town 
called  Khersa  or  Gersa,  situated  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Wady  Semakh  ; 
the  ancient  name  of  this  town  may  have  been  Gergesa  (Origen,  appar- 
ently referring  to  this  site,  gives  Gergesa  as  the  name  ,  cf.  Opera,  ed. 
De  la  Rue,  IV,  140,  Coin,  in  Joh.,  i  :  28  ;    quoted  by  Tischendorf,  Matt. 


THE  AUTHOR  3 

opposite  side  of  the  Sea  of  Galilee  from  Capernaum; 
14:34,  Gennesaret  on  the  Sea  of  Galilee;  15:21,  Tyre 
and  Sidon ;  15: 39,  Magadan,  though  this  cannot  be  cer- 
tainly identified  today;  16:13;  i7-Ij  Csesarea  Philippi, 
and  the  high  mountain  in  that  vicinity;  19:1,  Judea 
beyond  Jordan ;  20 :  29,  Jericho ;  21:1,  Bethphage  ( not 
certainly  identified),  and  the  Mount  of  Olives  {cf.  24:3) 
near  Jerusalem;  21:17;  26:6,  Bethany.  It  must  be 
remembered,  of  course,  that  these  references  may  be  in 
part  derived  from  a  documentary  source  employed  by  the 
writer  —  many  of  them  are  found  also  in  Mark  —  and 
that  all  of  them  are  possible  to  one  who  was  not  himself  a 

8:28),  or  possibly  Gerasa  (the  frequency  of  the  name  Jerash  today  — 
CoNDER  in  Smith,  Dictionary  of  the  Bible,  rev.  Eng.  ed.,  I,  1162  —  sug- 
gests that  Gerasa  was  a  common  name  in  ancient  times).  It  is  doubtless 
to  this  place  that  the  names  Gerasenes  and  Gergesenes  refer ;  the  former 
can  in  any  case  scarcely  refer  to  the  well-known  Gerasa,  thirty-five  miles 
distant  from  the  lake.  The  reading  Gadarenes,  it  should  be  observed, 
does  not  involve  the  statement  that  the  event  took  place  at  Gadara, 
which,  lying  six  miles  from  the  lake  and  south  of  the  Jarmuk,  is  an 
impossible  site,  but  in  the  country  of  the  Gadarenes,  i.  e.,  in  the  district 
attached  to  Gadara.  This  district,  called  Gadaritis  by  Josephus  (Jewish 
War,  III,  10,  10;  cf.  Ill,  3,  i),  is  proved  by  coins  to  have  extended 
to  the  Sea  of  Galilee  (Schurer,  Jewish  People,  Div.  II,  Vol.  I,  p.  104), 
but  does  not  seem  to  have  included  the  site  of  Khersa,  since  Hippos  with 
its  district  lies  between  (Palestine  Exploration  Fund  Quarterly  Statement, 
1887,  pp.  36  ff.  ;  Smith,  Historical  Geography,  p.  459) ■  If,  therefore,  Mat- 
thew wrote  Gadarenes,  it  must  have  been  either  with  the  intention  of 
assigning  the  event  to  the  southeastern  shore  of  the  sea,  where,  however, 
there  is  said  to  be  no  site  fulfilling  the  conditions  (Wilson  in  Smith, 
Dictionary  of  the  Bible,  rev.  Eng.  ed.,  I,  1099),  or  as  a  loose  and  general 
designation  of  the  country  along  the  southern  half  of  the  eastern  shore, 
although  the  particular  site  belonged  to  the  district  of  Hippos  or  to 
Gaulanitis,  rather  than  to  Gadaritis.  In  either  case  the  reading  Gada- 
renes, while  it  may  indicate  ignorance  of  the  exact  location  of  the 
event,  shows  at  least  general  acquaintance  with  the  geography  of  the 
region  adjacent  to  the  Sea  of  Galilee. 


4  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  MATTHEW 

Palestinian ;   yet  as  part  of  a  cumulative  argument  they 
are  not  without  value. 

b)  The  author  is  familiar  with  Jewish  history,  cus- 
toms, and  classes  of  people,  and  with  Jewish  ideas.  Thus 
in  I  :  i8f.  he  shows  his  acquaintance  with  the  fact  that 
betrothal  could  be  annulled  only  by  divorce ;  2:4,  with 
the  position  of  the  scribes,  as  those  to  whom  a  question 
about  the  doctrine  of  the  Messiah  would  be  referred ;  2  :  i, 
with  the  reign  of  Herod  the  Great ;  2:22,  with  the  fact 
that  Archelaus  succeeded  him  in  Judea,  but  not  in  Galilee, 
and  with  the  reputation  of  Archelaus  for  cruelty;^  14:  i, 
with  the  title  of  Herod  Antipas,  tetrarch^  of  Galilee; 
26:3,  57,  with  the  name  of  the  high-priest;  26:59,  with 
the  existence  and  character  of  the  Sanhedrin;  27:2,  11, 
13,  with  the  relation  of  the  Jewish  to  the  Roman  author- 
ities, and  with  the  name  of  the  Roman  procurator.  Here 
also,  though  no  single  item  of  the  evidence  is  decisive, 
the  whole  is  not  without  significance. 

c)  The  writer  is  familiar  with  the  Old  Testament, 
and  believes  in  it  as  a  book  containing  divinely  given 
prophecies.  The  first  section  of  the  book,  with  its  title 
characterizing  Christ  as  son  of  David  and  son  of  Abra- 

^  There  is  a  noticeable  diilerence  between  Matthew's  references  to  the 
political  situation  in  Palestine  and  Luke's.  Luke  speaks  with  the  air  of 
painstaking  investigation ;  Matthew,  with  that  of  easy  familiarity,  all 
the  more  noteworthy  that  the  frequent  and  somewhat  complicated  suc- 
cession of  rulers  would  have  made  error  easy. 

*  Mark  6:14  is  less  exact,  since  Herod  was  not,  strictly  speaking, 
king. 

In  14:3,  it  has  been  alleged,  Matthew  wrongly  designates  the 
brother  of  Herod  whose  wife  he  had  married  as  Philip,  whereas  Philip 
was  really  the  husband  of  Salome ;  but  it  is  by  no  means  certain  that 
there  is  an  error  here.  Cf.  Mark  6:17  and  commentaries  on  both 
passages.     See  also  chap,  ii,  p.  28,  n.  4. 


THE  AUTHOR  5 

ham,  and  the  genealogical  table,  taken  in  part  from  the 
Old  Testament,  and  designed  to  prove  that  Jesus  was 
descended  from  David  and  Abraham,  as  in  accordance 
with  prophecy  the  Messiah  must  be,  show  both  a  familiar- 
ity with  the  Old  Testament  and  a  thoroughly  Jewish  way 
of  looking  at  it.  The  structure  of  this  table  itself  points 
in  the  same  direction,  showing  that  it  is,  to  the  writer,  a 
matter  of  interest,  if  not  also  of  argument,  that  the  gen- 
erations from  Abraham  to  Moses  are  (by  virtue  of  slight 
omissions  and  double  counting)  divisible  into  three 
groups  of  fourteen  (twice  seven)  generations,  a  fact 
which  suggests  that  the  Messiah  appeared  at  an  appro- 
priate time,  at  the  end  of  three  periods  the  culmination 
of  each  of  the  two  preceding  of  which  had  been  marked 
by  a  great  event  of  Jewish  history.  Throughout  the  gos- 
pel, but  especially  in  the  early  and  later  parts,  he  calls 
attention  to  passages  of  the  Old  Testament  which  he 
interprets  as  finding  their  fulfilment  in  events  of  Jesus' 
life  (i  :22  f. ;  2:56,  15,  17  f.,  23 ;  4 :  14-16;  8:  17;  12: 
17-21;  13:35;  2i:4f.;  27:9).  These  eleven  passages, 
most  of  them  introduced  by  the  formula,  "that  it  might 
be  fulfilled  which  was  spoken  through  the  prophet," 
sometimes  with  the  insertion  of  the  phrase  "  by  the  Lord," 
are  a  marked  feature  of  this  gospel.  They  are  a  special 
contribution  of  this  evangelist,  having  no  parallel  passages 
in  Mark  or  Luke.^  Nor,  with  the  exception  of  Mark  i  :  2 
and  Luke  3:4ff.,  parallel  to  Matt.  3:3,  are  there  any 
similar  passages  in  the  other  synoptic  gospels.  They 
show  in  the  clearest  way  the  author's  special  interest  in 

'  Nor  in  John,  save  that  21  :  4  f.  is  paralleled  in  John  12:14  f.,  and 
8:17  partially  in  John  1:29.  Matt.  4:16  has  a  partial  parallel  in 
Luke  I  :  79. 


6  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  MATTHEW 

the  messianic  prophecies  of  the  Old  Testament  and  in 
their  fulfihnent  in  Jesus.  The  conception  of  the  Old 
Testament  and  the  method  of  interpreting  it  which  they 
reveal,  though  not  impossible  to  a  gentile  Christian  as  an 
acquisition  from  others,  were  certainly  developed  on 
Jewish  soil.  That  we  have,  in  this  particular  case,  to  do 
with  a  mind  itself  Jewish  is  placed  almost  beyond  doubt 
by  the  fact  that,  though  the  quotations  from  the  Old 
Testament  which  are  common  to  our  first  three  gospels, 
nearly  all  of  which  occur  in  the  words  of  Jesus,  show  a 
predominant  influence  of  the  Greek  version  of  the  Old 
Testament,  this  group  of  eleven  peculiar  to  the  first  evan- 
gelist clearly  shows  a  predominant  influence  of  the  origi- 
nal Hebrew.  And  this  is  the  more  significant  in  view  of 
the  fact  that  in  the  one  instance  in  which  the  three  syn- 
optists  unite  in  quoting  a  passage  and  speak  of  its  fulfil- 
ment (Matt.  3:3;  Mark  1:2;  Luke  3:4ff.,  referring 
Isa.  40:3  to  John  the  Baptist)  they  agree  in  a  form  of 
the  passage  which  clearly  shows  the  influence  of  the 
Septuagint. 

d)  In  various  other  ways  the  writer  betrays  his  Jew- 
ish feeling  and  point  of  view.  He  employs  descriptive 
names  derived  from  the  Old  Testament  which  would  be 
unnatural  in  the  mouth  of  any  but  a  Jew,  and  which  are, 
in  fact,  found  nowhere  else  in  the  New  Testament,  except 
for  one  phrase  which  occurs  also  in  the  book  of  Revela- 
tion. Thus  in  2  :  20,  21,  land  of  Israel ;  4:5;  27  :  53,  holy 
city  (c/.  Rev.  11:2);  5  :  35,  city  of  the  great  king;  10:6; 
1 5  :  24,  lost  sheep  of  the  house  of  Israel.  He  speaks  of  the 
half-shekel  tax  which  every  adult  male  Jew  paid  annually 
for  the  support  of  the  temple  (cf.  Exod.  30:13-16), 
simply  by  the  name  of  the  coin  that  paid  it.  the  two- 


THE  AUTHOR  7 

drachma  piece,  following  in  this  a  usage  probably  common 
among  the  Jews.^  His  tone  in  speaking  of  gentiles 
(5:47;  6:7.  32;  18:17)  'S  decidedly  Jewish,  the  name 
"gentile"  being  evidently  wath  him  not  simply  a  desig- 
nation of  nationality,  but  a  characterization  nearly  equiva- 
lent to  our  modern  term  "heathen."  He  is  particularly 
interested  in  those  teachings  of  Jesus  which  are  of  special 
significance  to  the  Jew  and  the  Jewish  Christian.  Thus 
it  is  in  this  gospel  only  that  w^e  have  Jesus'  word  con- 
cerning the  permanence  of  the  law  (5:17-19);  the 
sermon  on  the  mount  as  given  here  preserves  the  com- 
parison of  Jesus'  teaching  with  that  of  the  Pharisees,  and, 
indirectly,  with  that  of  the  Old  Testament  (chaps.  5-7), 
an  element  wholly  absent  from  the  similar  discourse  in 
Luke  (6:20-49);  this  gospel  alone  tells  us  that  the 
personal  mission  of  Jesus,  and  the  work  of  his  apostles  on 
their  first  separate  mission  tour,  were  limited  to  the  Jews 
(10:6;  15:24);  it  gives  special  emphasis  to  Jesus' 
denunciation  of  the  Pharisees  (15:13  f. ;  21: 28-32  ;  chap. 
23),  and  is  our  only  authority  for  the  most  striking  of  his 
,  sayings  concerning  the  impending  doom  of  the  nation 
(8:11,  12;  21:43;  22:7,  are  found  only  in  Matthew; 
cf.,  also,  12  :  38-45  ;  23  :  35,  36 ;  24 : 2,  of  wdiich  there  are 
parallels  in  Mark  or  Luke,  and  27 :  25,  peculiar  to  Mat- 
thew). Here  are  eleanents  which  seem  at  first  sight  con- 
tradictory, but  they  all  bespeak  an  author  especially 
concerned  with  the  relations  of  the  gospel  to  Judaism. 

°  Concerning  the  variation  in  the  amount  of  the  tax,  see  Exod. 
30:  13;  Neh.  10:32;  concerning  the  ratio  of  the  shekel  and  drachma, 
and  the  coins  in  use  in  New  Testament  times,  see  Madden,  Coins  of 
the  Jews,  pp.  290  f.,  294  ;  Benzinger,  Hebrdischc  Archijologic,  p.  193  ; 
ScHURER,  Jewish  People,  Div.  II,  Vol.  I,  pp.  38-40,  250  f. ;  3d  German 
ed.,  Vol.  II,  pp.  52-55,  258  f . ;    Josephus,  Antiq.,  iii,  8,  2;    xviii,  9,   i. 


8  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  MATTHEW 

2.  The  authors  religions  position. —  Evident  as  it  is 
that  onr  evangelist  is  a  Jew  by  nationality  and  education, 
it  is  still  more  clear  that  he  is  a  Christian  —  a  Jew  who, 
holding  the  messianic  hope  of  his  people  and  believing 
that  there  are  messianic  prophecies  in  the  Old  Testament, 
finds  that  hope  realized  and  those  prophecies  fulfilled  in 
Jesus.  Passages  need  hardly  be  cited.  The  first  line  of 
the  gospel  shows  the  author's  position,  and  it  appears 
throughout  the  book.  The  question  whether  he  was  also 
a  Judaizing  Christian,  believing  in  the  permanent  author- 
ity of  the  statute  law  of  the  Old  Testament  for  both 
Jewish  and  gentile  Christian,  or  perhaps  for  the  Jewish 
Christian  but  not  for  his  gentile  brother,  can  be  answered 
only  on  the  basis  of  a  study  of  the  purpose  of  the  book, 
(See  III.) 

3.  The  testimony  of  tradition  coiicerning  the  author- 
ship of  the  hook. —  This  comes  to  us  in  — 

a)  The  title  which  the  gospel  bears  in  ancient  manu- 
scripts. This  is  uniformly  Kara  Ma^^atot',  "  According 
to  Matthew,"  ^va^<ye\Lov  Kara  MaOOaiov,  "  Gospel  accord- 
ing to  Matthew,"  or  equivalent  phrase." 

'  The  earliest  form  of  the  title  of  the  first  gospel  by  which  it  is 
named  in  any  extant  work  is  rb  Kara  MaOdaiov  fuayyiXwv,  "  The  Gospel 
according  to  Matthew."  So  in  Irenasus  {Possin.  Cat.  Patr.  in  Matt., 
iii,  II,  8;  Antc-Nicene  Fathers,  Am.  ed.,  Vol.  I,  p.  573)  and  in  EusE- 
Bius,  H.E.,  V,  ID.  In  the  oldest  Greek  manuscripts  the  title  is  simply 
Karh.  MaOdaTov.  Westcott  and  Hort  and  others  think  that  the  word 
fiiayy^'KLOv  ("  gospel  ")  as  the  common  title  of  the  whole  group  of  four 
books  must  be  presupposed  in  order  to  account  for  this  form  of  title, 
though  it  does  not,  in  fact,  appear  in  any  manuscript.  If  this  is  correct, 
the  title  of  the  several  gospels  was  in  effect  evayyiXiov  Kara  'Maddaiov, 
evayyiXiov  Kara  MdpKov — "Gospel  according  to  Matthew,"  "Gospel 
according  to  Mark,"  etc.  Later  manuscripts  prefixed  a  title  after  this 
form  to  each  of  the  gospels  separately.  The  form  rb  Kara  ^laOOaTov 
dyiov  €vayy^\iov  is  found   only  in  late  manuscripts. 


THE  AUTHOR  9 

b)  The  statements  of  the  Fathers.  These  constantly 
connect  the  gospel  with  Matthew,  sometimes  expressly 
describing  him  as  the  publican  or  the  apostle.  The  earli- 
est of  these  testimonies  is  that  of  Papias,  quoted  by 
Eusebius : 

Matthew  accordingly  composed  the  oracles  [sayings]  in  the 
Hebrew  dialect,  and  each  one  interpreted  them  as  he  was  able 
(Eusebius,  H.  E.,  iii,  39). 

Later  writers  frequently  repeat  this  assertion  that  Mat- 
thew wrote  in  Hebrew,  yet  accept  our  Greek  gospel  as 
Matthew's,  many  of  them  having  apparently  no  direct 
acquaintance  with  the  Hebrew  book.  In  the  third  century 
and  later  several  Hebrew  gospels  were  known,  the  testi- 
mony of  those  who  had  seen  them  showing  that  they 
resembled  our  Matthev/,  but  were  not  identical  with  it. 
That  any  of  them  was  the  original  Hebrew  Matthew  is 
improbable.  The  whole  evidence,  confused  though  it  is, 
leaves  no  room  for  doubt  that  our  first  gospel  is  connected 
with  the  apostle  Matthew,  but  the  precise  nature  of  the 
relation  must  be  determined  largely  by  the  close  compara- 
tive study  of  the  first  three  gospels  in  the  light  of  the  liter- 
ary methods  of  the  time.  Meantime  it  is  to  be  observed 
that  if  the  apostle  was  the  author  of  one  of  the  sources  of 
the  book  rather  than  of  the  book  itself,  and  if  the  gospel 
received  its  present  form  from  some  other  author,  the 
latter  also  is  shown  by  the  evidence  of  the  gospel  itself  to 
be  a  Jewish  Christian,  thoroughly  imbued  alike  with 
belief  in  the  Old  Testament  and  with  faith  in  Christ  as  the 
Messiah.  His  religious  position,  as  well  as  his  ability  as 
an  author,  will  become  more  clear  from  the  evidence  still 
to  be  examined  under  iii,  iv,  and  v. 


lo        THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  MATTHEW 

II.       THE  READERS  FOR  WHOM   THE  BOOK   WAS  PRIMARILY 
INTENDED 

Much  of  the  evidence  bearing  upon  this  question  is 
derived  from  the  same  passages  which  have  already  been 
cited  to  show  the  nationahty  of  the  writer. 

1.  Not  much  stress  can  be  laid  on  the  writer's  apparent 
assumption  that  his  readers  are  familiar  with  Palestinian 
geography.  The  other  gospels,  which  on  other  grounds 
are  shown  to  have  been  written  specially  for  gentiles, 
apparently  make  the  same  assumption ;  or  rather,  perhaps, 
are  equally  unconcerned  that  their  readers  should  under- 
stand their  geographical  references.  There  are  even 
some  passages  in  Matthew  which  seem  to  assume  that  his 
readers  were  not  acquainted  with  the  smaller  Palestinian 
towns.  In  2  :  23,  indeed,  the  phrase  "  a  city  called  Naza- 
reth "  is  probably  used  simply  to  call  attention  to  the  name 
in  anticipation  of  the  next  sentence,  and  in  4: 13  a  similar 
motive  leads  to  the  mention  of  the  location  of  Capernaum ; 
but  the  placing  of  the  healing  of  the  demoniacs  in  the 
country  of  the  Gadarenes,  if  this  be  the  correct  reading, 
seems  to  imply  that  he  could  not  assume  that  his  readers 
would  be  acquainted  with  the  little  town  Khersa,  and, 
therefore,  located  the  event  more  generally  in  the  country 
of  the  Gadarenes,  or  else  that  he  himself  was  unacquainted 
with  the  smaller  place  (cf.  note  2).  Beyond  this  the 
geographical  evidence  is  purely  negative. 

2.  Though  a  general  acquaintance  with  Jewish  cus- 
toms and  institutions  on  the  part  of  the  reader  is  assumed 
in  all  of  the  gospels,  and  hence  does  not  of  itself  point  to 
Jewish  readers,  yet  the  extent  of  this  in  the  first  gospel  is 
worthy  of  notice.  Compare,  for  example,  Matthew's 
references  to  the  Jewish  rulers   (2:1,  22;    14:1)   with 


THE  READERS  ii 

Luke's  (2  : 1,  2;  3 :  i,  2),  or  his  unexplained  mention  of 
the  Jewish  custom  of  ceremonial  cleansing  (15:2)  with 
Mark's  detailed  explanation  (7:3,  4).  The  seeming 
exception  in  27:  15  is  not  properly  such.  The  custom  of 
releasing  a  prisoner  at  the  passover  season,  not  otherwise 
known  to  us,  was  probably  not  of  Jewish  but  of  Roman 
origin,  and  since  the  government  of  Judea  had  changed 
several  times  in  the  generation  or  more  between  the  death 
of  Jesus  and  the  writing  of  the  gospel,  it  is  probable  that 
the  custom  had  so  long  ago  ceased  that  even  to  Jews  it 
was  a  matter  of  unfamiliar  history. 

3.  The  number  of  argumentative  quotations  from  the 
Old  Testament  introduced  by  the  writer,  and  the  almost 
total  absence  of  such  quotations  from  Mark  and  Luke  — 
John  has  more  than  Mark  and  Luke,  but  fewer  than 
Matthew  —  suggest  also  Jewish  readers.  It  is  certainly 
not  decisive  evidence,  since  arguments  from  Scripture 
early  became  the  common  property  of  Christians,  both 
Jewish  and  gentile.  The  extent  and  prominence  of  the 
Scripture  argument  count  for  something,  but  the  decisive 
word  must  be  said  on  the  basis  of  the  nature  of  the  argu- 
ment which  this  gospel  founds  on  its  quotations.     (See 

in.) 

4.  The  use  of  Jewish  descriptive  titles  (see  the  pas- 
sages cited  under  i^  i,  d),  the  reporting  of  the  words  of 
Jesus  which  emphasized  his  mission  to  the  Jews  (10:5,  6; 
15  :  24),  and  of  other  teachings  which  would  be  of  special 
interest  to  Jews  (11:14;  12:5,6;  17:24;  23:16-22  — 
all  peculiar  to  this  gospel),  and  the  fact  that  the  great 
discourses  of  Jesus,  notably  the  sermon  on  the  mount 
(chaps.  5-7),  are  reported  in  a  form  adapting  them  to 
interest  the  Jewish  mind  especially,  are  of  more  decisive 


12        THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  MATTHEW 

significance,  and  all  indicate  that  the  writer  has  in  mind 
mainly  Jewish  readers.  Still  more  significant,  though 
here  also  the  full  significance  will  appear  only  in  relation 
to  the  purpose  of  the  book,  are  the  passages  referred  to 
above  which  foreshadow  the  downfall  of  Judaism  (8:  ii, 
12;  12:38-45;  21:43;  22:1-14;  23:35,  36;  24:2; 
27:25).  The  use  of  the  term  "  gentiles  "  as  a  designation 
of  religion  rather  than  of  nationality  ( 5  :  47,  etc. )  suggests 
the  same  thing,  but  is  shown  by  i  Cor.  5:1;  10:20; 
12:2,  to  be  possible  in  a  writing  addressed  directly  to 
gentile  Christians ;  its  occurrence,  therefore,  tends  only  to 
indicate  that  the  book  was  not  intended  for  non-Christian 
gentiles.  The  use  of  the  term  "Jews"  (28:15)  ""^  the 
way  so  common  in  the  fourth  gospel  is  not  only  a  mark  of 
the  Christian  point  of  view  of  the  Jewish  writer,  but  tends 
in  some  degree  to  indicate  that  he  wrote  for  those  who, 
though  Jews  in  nationality,  now  distinguished  themselves 
from  the  rest  of  the  nation  by  their  Christianity. 

III.       THE  PURPOSE  WITH  WHICH  THE  EVANGELIST  WROTE 

Alike  the  material  and  the  general  structure  of  the 
book  suggest  that  we  have  to  do  here  with  a  work  which 
is  in  a  sense  historical  or  biographical.  The  material  is 
mainly  narrative  in  form,  consisting  of  reports  of  deeds 
done  and  discourses  uttered  on  certain  occasions,  not  of 
discussion  or  formal  argument  by  the  writer  of  the  book. 
It  is  a  history,  however,  which  gathers  around  the  person 
of  Jesus ;  only  such  events  and  persons  as  stand  in  imme- 
diate relation  to  him  are  spoken  of,  and  these  only  in  so 
far  as  they  are  related  to  him.  The  book  falls  into  six 
main  parts  {cf.  the  analysis  at  the  end  of  this  chapter), 
representing    periods    of    the    life    of    Jesus    which    are 


THE  PURPOSE  OF  THE  WRITER  13 

arranged  in  chronological  order,  from  his  birth  to  his 
resurrection. 

Yet  before  it  is  decided  that,  because  the  material  is 
of  a  biographical  character  and  the  main  structure  chrono- 
logical, therefore  the  end  of  the  writer  is  attained  when 
he  has  given  an  historically  correct  representation  of  the 
life  of  Jesus,  or  even,  perhaps,  when  he  has  told  such  facts 
about  the  life  of  Jesus  as  are  known  to  him,  certain  other 
considerations  must  be  taken  into  account.  It  must  be 
remembered  that  it  was  in  accordance  with  the  literary 
method  of  the  first  Christian  century  and  of  the  adjacent 
periods  to  employ  historical  material  for  argumentative 
purposes,  and  that,  too,  without  casting  the  material  into 
the  form  of  an  argument,  or  even  stating  anywhere  in  the 
course  of  the  narrative  what  the  facts  were  intended  to 
prove.  It  was  assumed  that  the  reader  or  hearer  would 
be  shrewd  enough  to  discover  this  for  himself,  and  this 
assumption  was  apparently  amply  justified. 

This  use  of  historical  material  for  argumentative  pur- 
poses, this  clothing  of  argument  in  narrative  form,  finds 
several  clear  illustrations  in  the  New  Testament.  In  the 
discourse  of  Jesus  in  the  synagogue  at  Nazareth,  as 
related  in  Luke  4:16-30,  Jesus  replies  to  the  thought 
of  the  Nazarenes,  which  they  have  not  even  openly 
expressed,  by  relating  two  events  from  Old  Testament 
history;  he  does  not  state  what  these  events  prove,  and 
modern  interpreters  are  somewhat  puzzled  to  tell  pre- 
cisely what  he  intended  to  prove  by  them.  But  there  is  no 
doubt  that  he  intended  that  they  should  teach  something 
not  directly  expressed  in  them,  and  that  the  Nazarene  con- 
gregation so  understood  him.  Tlie  speeches  in  the  book 
of  Acts  are  almost  all  of  them  of  the  same  character, 


14        THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  MATTHEW 

from  the  speech  of  Peter  on  the  day  of  Pentecost  down  to 
the  later  speeches  of  Paul.  The  two  best  illustrations  are 
furnished  by  the  speech  of  Stephen  before  the  council, 
which  is  very  evidently  of  argumentative  purpose,  yet 
which  leaves  the  purpose  so  entirely  unstated  that  most 
readers  today  probably  entirely  fail  to  perceive  it,  and 
the  speech  of  Paul  at  Pisidian  Antioch,  which  has  the 
same  characteristics,  only  less  strongly  marked.  The 
fourth  gospel  furnishes  an  illustration  of  a  book  almost 
wholly  made  up  of  narrative  material  (including  in  that 
term  conversations  and  discourses  assigned  to  certain 
occasions),  yet  explicitly  stated  by  the  writer  to  have  been 
written  with  the  purpose  that  the  readers  might  believe  a 
certain  doctrinal  proposition,  this  again  for  the  purpose 
of  producing  a  certain  moral  result  (20:30,  31).  The 
book  of  Acts  also,  though  the  writer  has  not  stated  a  defi- 
nite argumentative  purpose,  is  almost  universally  admitted 
to  have  been  written  for  such  a  purpose;  precisely  what 
the  purpose  was  interpreters  still  dispute. 

In  view  of  this  well-established  literary  custom,  of 
which  there  are  abundant  examples  in  the  New  Testament 
literature  itself,  it  is  only  natural  to  ask  whether  our 
gospel  also  gives  evidence  of  such  a  purpose  on  the  part 
of  its  writer.  Such  evidence  does,  in  fact,  appear  the 
moment  we  carry  our  study  of  the  structure  of  the  l)Ook 
beyond  a  division  into  its  six  main  parts.  The  first  main 
division,  though  including  only  material  pertaining  to  the 
ancestry,  birth,  and  infancy  of  Jesus,  yet  makes  an  eviden- 
tial use  of  every  event  which  it  relates,  pointing  out  how 
in  each  of  the  narrated  facts  Old  Testament  prophecy  was 
fulfilled  in  Jesus.  The  Galilean  ministry  is  scarcely  less 
evidently  constructed  on  a  plan  which  is  more  logical  than 


THE  PURPOSE  OF  THE  WRITER  15 

chronological,  the  whole  constituting  an  exposition  of  the 
nature  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  the  way  in  which  it  must 
be  received,  and  the  way  in  which  the  Jews  did  actually 
receive  it,  foreshadowing  their  rejection  of  the  Messiah, 
and  their  own  consequent  downfall  {cf.  the  analysis 
under  v).  The  passion  week,  though  the  material  is, 
with  a  few  significant  exceptions,  apparently  arranged  on 
a  chronological  plan,  is  yet  so  treated  as  to  present  the 
evidence  for  the  fact  that  Christ  and  his  kingdom  were 
explicitly  and  clearly  presented  to  the  Jews  for  their 
acceptance,  with  warning  of  the  consequences  to  them  of 
rejection,  and  that  in  the  face  of  such  presentation  and 
such  warning  they  definitely  rejected  Christ  and  the 
kingdom. 

But  if  the  book  has  an  argumentative  purpose,  which 
is  either  the  dominant  one  or  one  which  is  co-ordinate 
with  a  more  distinctly  historical  aim,  precisely  what  is  it 
that  the  author  conceives  his  narrative  to  prove,  and  of 
which  he  wishes  to  convince  his  readers?  The  answer 
must  be  gained  by  observing  on  what  the  writer  lays 
emphasis.  Notice,  then,  what  the  passages  already  cited 
have  in  part  shown,  the  characteristic  ideas  of  this  gospel. 
The  writer  believes  in  the  Old  Testament,  and  holds  that 
its  messianic  prophecies  are  fulfilled  in  Jesus  (i  123,  etc.)  ; 
Jesus  himself  held  to  the  divine  and  permanent  authority 
of  the  Old  Testament  ethical  teaching  (5  :  17  ff. ;  15  :  3  ff., 
etc.),  though  indirectly  criticising  the  statutory  legislation 
or  affirming  its  temporary  character  (5:21-48  passim; 
9:14-17;  15:10-20;  19:8)  ;  he  addressed  himself  to  the 
Jews,  announced  the  near  approach  of  the  kingdom  of 
heaven,  adapted  his  instruction  to  their  point  of  view 
(see  all  the  discourses)  ;  limited  his  own  personal  mission 


1 6        THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  MATTHEW 

to  them  (15:24),  and  instructed  his  disciples  when  he 
sent  them  out  to  do  the  same  ( 10 :  5,  6)  ;  when,  despite  the 
fact  that  multitudes  followed  him  and  true  disciples  were 
won,  it  hecame  evident  that  the  leaders  of  the  people 
would  reject  him,  he  warned  them  of  the  danger  of  such 
rejection  (8:11,  12;  12:38-45;  cf.  the  words  of  John 
the  Baptist,  3:9),  and  as  opposition  grew  and  approached 
its  culmination  in  the  determination  to  put  him  to  death, 
he  scathingly  rebuked  the  Pharisees,  under  whose  influ- 
ence the  nation  was  rejecting  its  Messiah  (chap.  23.  espe- 
cially vs.  13),  announced  with  increasing  distinctness  the 
direful  results  of  such  rejection  to  the  nation  and  to  Juda- 
ism itself,  even  definitely  declaring  the  rejection  of  the 
nation  by  God  (see  21:33-46:  22:1-14;  but  especially 
21  :  42,  43  ;  22  :  7 ;  23  :  36,  38 ;  24 : 2)  ;  and  finally,  when 
the  rejection  which  he  had  foreseen  had  come  to  pass,  and 
had  been  succeeded  by  his  death  and  triumphant  resurrec- 
tion, he  commissioned  his  disciples,  no  longer  to  go  to  the 
lost  sheep  of  the  house  of  Israel  only,  but  to  make  disciples 
of  all  nations  (28  :  19). 

These  are  characteristics  which  are  not  common  to  all 
our  gospels ;  they  are,  in  large  part,  peculiar  to  Matthew. 
And  they  reveal  as  the  motive  of  this  argument  in  narra- 
tive form  the  purpose  to  prove  that  Jesus  is  the  true  Mes- 
siah of  the  Jews;  that  he  announced  and  founded  the 
kingdom  of  God,  expounding-  its  true  nature,  and  setting 
forth  its  relation  to  the  Old  Testament  religion;  that  he 
came,  first  of  all,  to  the  Jewish  nation;  that,  when  they 
showed  signs  of  a  disposition  not  to  receive  his  message, 
he  warned  them  that  the  consequence  of  such  rejection 
would  be  that  the  kingdom  would  be  taken  from  them; 
that,  in  fact,  they  did  in  the  face  of  all  this  warning  and 


THE  PURPOSE  OF  THE  WRITER  17 

instruction  reject  Jesus  and  put  him  to  death;  and  that, 
consequently,  the  kingdom  ceased  to  be  in  any  distinctive 
sense  Jewish,  and  in  place  of  the  old  national  dispensation 
there  was  created  by  Jesus  himself,  the  true  Jewish  Mes- 
siah, a  kingdom  of  all  nations;  thus,  universal  Chris- 
tianity, freed  from  all  national  restrictions  or  peculiarly 
Jewish  institutions,  becomes  the  true  successor  of  the  Old 
Testament  religion;  the  true  Jew  must  be  a  follower  of 
Jesus,  and,  in  consequence,  leave  Judaism  behind. 

It  is  important  to  perceive  clearly  all  the  elements  of 
this  purpose.  The  author's  aim  is  by  no  means  attained 
when  he  has  advanced  evidence  that  Jesus  is  the  Messiah. 
He  reaches  his  goal  only  wdien,  w'ith  this  as  the  first  step 
of  his  argument,  he  has  shown  that  Jesus  the  Messiah 
founded  a  kingdom  of  universal  scope,  abolishing  all 
Jewish  limitations. 

IV.       OTHER    PROBLEMS    IN    THE    LIGHT    OF    THE    PURPOSE 

If  this  is  a  correct  exposition  of  the  specific  aim  of 
the  book,  it  affords  help  in  answering  several  other 
questions.  Thus  it  gives  a  more  definite  answer  to  the 
inquiry  w'hat  readers  the  writer  had  especially  in  mind  cf. 
11).  It  becomes  clear  that  the  book  was  intended,  not  for 
Jews  as  such,  but  especially  for  Jewish  Christians.  Were 
the  book  designed  simply  to  prove  the  messiahship  of 
Jesus,  it  might  be  supposed  to  be  addressed  to  unconverted 
Jews  and  intended  to  persuade  them  to  accept  Jesus  as  the 
Christ.  But  if  the  argument  for  the  messiahship  of  Jesus 
is  but  the  first  step  of  the  whole,  and  if  the  ultimate  pur- 
pose is  to  convince  the  reader,  on  historical  grounds,  that 
Christianity  is  not  a  national  but  a  universal  religion,  that 
the  old  limitations  of  Judaism,  though  valid  in  their  own 


1 8        THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  MATTHEW 

time,  have,  by  the  Jews'  rejection  of  the  Messiah,  been 
broken  down,  this  is  evidently  a  Hne  of  thought  which 
would  be  addressed  to  a  Christian,  either  to  persuade  him 
to  abandon  his  narrow  Judaistic  type  of  Christianity,  or 
to  dissuade  him  from  turning  back  from  Christianity  to 
Judaism  itself.  Were  the  book  less  careful  to  recognize 
the  legitimacy  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  the  primary 
mission  of  Jesus  to  the  Jews,  and,  in  general,  to  adapt  its 
argument  to  the  Jewish  point  of  view,  its  contention  for  a 
universal  Christianity  might  seem  to  point  to  gentile 
Christians  as  the  readers  whom  the  writer  had  in  mind. 
But  faced,  as  it  constantly  is,  to  the  thought  of  the  Jew, 
such  a  destination  for  the  book  is  excluded. 

But  while  intended  for  Jewish  Christian  readers,  the 
book  is  emphatically  not  of  a  Judaistic  cast.  It  is  even 
more  directly  opposed  to  the  Judaizing  type  of  Christian- 
ity than  most  of  the  writings  of  Paul  which  deal  with  that 
question.  The  apostle  to  the  gentiles  confined  himself  for 
the  most  part  to  defending  the  right  of  the  gentiles  to 
believe  in  Jesus  and  enter  into  all  the  privileges  of  Chris- 
tians without  becoming  subject  to  the  law.  Of  course,  the 
logic  of  this  position  involved  a  like  freedom  ultimately 
for  the  Jew,  and  Paul  could,  on  occasion,  insist  upon  this 
(Gal.  2:  15-19;  Eph.  2:  14-16),  yet  always  for  the  sake 
of  the  gentile,  whose  interests  he,  as  the  apostle  of  the 
gentiles,  was  concerned  to  defend.  But  this  gospel, 
addressed  to  Jewish  Christians,  shows  from  the  teaching 
and  conduct  of  Jesus  that  for  the  Jew  also  the  old 
regime  has  ended ;  the  nation  that  rejected  the  Messiah 
is  itself  rejected ;  its  temple,  the  center  of  ritual  and  wor- 
ship, is  overthrown;  its  house  is  left  unto  it  desolate;  the 
kingdom  of  God  is  taken  from  it  and  given  unto  a  nation 


MINOR  PROBLEMS  19 

bringing  forth  the  fruits  thereof.  The  Old  Testament 
foundation  of  the  kingdom  is  not  for  a  moment  repudi- 
ated, but,  on  the  basis  of  the  teaching  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment and  of  the  words  of  Jesus  the  Christ,  the  Christian 
church,  drawn  from  all  nations  and  having  no  special 
relation  to  the  temple  or  Judaism,  is  shown  to  be  the 
inheritor  of  the  kingdom. 

In  the  light  of  this  purpose  of  the  book,  its  unity  is 
clearly  evident.  From  the  assertion  in  its  first  verse  that 
Jesus  is  the  Christ,  the  son  of  David,  the  son  of  Abraham, 
to  the  commission  which  in  its  closing  paragraph  this 
Christ,  now  risen  from  the  dead,  gives  to  his  apostles  to 
make  disciples  of  all  nations,  one  thought  dominates  it. 
This  is  no  patchwork  put  together  by  several  hands  work- 
ing with  different  conceptions,  or  by  one  editor  whose 
only  thought  was  to  include  all  the  evangelic  material 
that  he  possessed.  The  writer  may  have  employed  as 
sources  of  his  book  other  gospel  writings ;  the  resemblance 
of  some  of  the  material  to  that  which  is  contained  in  the 
other  gospels  seems  to  show  that  he  had  such  sources; 
but,  whether  so  or  not,  he  has  wrought  all  his  material 
into  a  real  book,  with  a  definite  course  of  thought  and  a 
clearly  defined  aim. 

Nor  can  it  be  doubted  that  the  writer  had  before  him 
a  definite  situation,  a  practical  problem  to  solve,  not  a 
merely  theoretical  proposition  to  prove.  He  is  a  man  of 
thought,  even  of  a  reflective  turn  of  rriind;  but  his  book 
is  far  from  being  a  mere  meditative  study.  Though  so 
different  in  form  and  style,  it  reminds  us  by  its  purpose  of 
the  epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  which  was  written  to  those 
who,  having  received  the  knowledge  of  the  truth,  were  in 
danger  of  drawing  back  and  of  not  holding  fast  the  con- 


20        THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  MATTHEW 

fession  of  their  faith  (Heb.  10:19-39).  There  is  much 
to  suggest  that  our  evangehst  wrote,  not  indeed  for  the 
same  persons,  but  for  those  who  were  subject  to  a  similar 
danger.  Was  it,  perhaps,  for  those  who,  having  till  now 
held  fast  to  Judaism,  only  adding  to  it  faith  in  Jesus  as 
the  Messiah,  but  now  seeing  the  near  approach  of  the 
destruction  of  Jerusalem,  or  possibly,  having  already 
witnessed  it,  were  in  danger  of  surrendering  their  Chris- 
tianity under  the  influence  of  the  blow  which  had  fallen 
upon  Judaism,  and  of  the  argument  that  he  was  surely  not 
the  Messiah  who  could  not  avert  such  disaster  from  his 
own  people?  To  save  them  from  this  danger  it  would  be 
needful  to  separate  Judaism  and  Christianity  in  their 
minds;  while  confirming  their  faith  in  Jesus  as  the  Christ 
of  prophecy,  to  show  them  that  he  had  himself  announced 
precisely  that  which  was  now  happening,  and  had  in 
anticipation  of  it  founded  a  Christianity  which  was  at  the 
same  time  the  legitimate  successor  of  the  Old  Testament 
religion  and  free  from  its  national  restrictions.  But 
whether  it  was  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem,  impending  or 
already  past,  which  furnished  the  immediate  occasion  for 
the  book  or  not.  it  seems  impossible  to  doubt  that  it  was 
written  primarily  to  convince  Jewish  Christians  that  the 
religion  of  Jesus  was  not  merely  the  Judaism  of  the 
temple,  phis  a  belief  in  Jesus  as  the  Messiah,  but  a  world- 
religion,  freed  from  all  bounds  and  restrictions  that  were 
local  and  national.  It  carries  the  doctrine  of  the  apostle 
Paul  to  the  conclusion  which  Paul  saw  to  be  involved  in 
it.  but  to  which  he  was  not  wont  himself  to  press  it. 


THE  PLAN  OF  THE  GOSPEL  21 

V.       THE    PLAN    OF   THE   GOSPEL 

The  following  is  an  attempt  to  exhibit  the  plan  of  the 
book  as  it  lay  in  the  writer's  mind : 

ANALYSIS    OF    THE    GOSPEL    OF    MATTHEW 

I.    The  Birth  and  Infancy  of  Jesus.    The  advent  of 

the  Messiah  in  accordance  with  prophecy.  chaps,   i,  2 

1.  The  genealogy  of  Jesus,  showing  his  Abrahamic 

and  Davidic  descent.  i  :  1-17 

2.  The  annunciation  to  Joseph,  and  the  birth  of 

Jesus  from  the  virgin,  as  prophesied.  i  :  18-25 

3.  The  visit  of  the  magi,   giving  occasion  to   the 
testimony  of  the  Jewish  scribes  that  Bethlehem 

was  the  prophesied  birthplace  of  the  Messiah.  2 :  1-12 

4.  The  flight  into  Egypt,  fulfilling  prophecy.  2 :  13-15 

5.  The  murder  of  the  children  of  Bethlehem,  ful- 
filling prophecy.  2:16-18 

6.  The  return  from  Egypt  and  removal  to  Naza- 
reth, fulfilling  prophecy.  2 :  19-23 

II.  Prepakation  for  the  Public  Work  of  Jesus. 
Events  preparatory  to  the  founding  of  the  king- 
dom. 3 :  I — 4: IT 

1.  The  preparatory  ministry  of  John  the  Baptist,  in 
accordance  with  prophecy.  3  :  1-12 

2.  The    baptism    of    Jesus,    accompanied    by    the 

descent  of  the  Spirit  and  the  voice  from  heaven.  3  :  13-17 

3.  The  temptation   in   the  wilderness,  settling  the 
principles  on  which  his  work  was  to  be  done.  4:  i-ii 

III.    The  Ministry  in  Galilee.    The  kingdom  founded 

and  its  fundamental  principles  set  forth.  4 :  12 — 18 :  35 

I.    The  beginning  of  Jesus'  work  in  Galilee.  4:  12-25 

a)  The  removal  to  Capernaum  and  the  begin- 
ning of  preaching.  4:12-17 

b)  The  call  of  the  four  to  evangelistic  work.  4:  18-22 

c)  Jesus'  early  work  in  Galilee;   his  widespread 

fame.  4 :  23-25 


22        THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  MATTHEW 

2.  The  sermon  on  the  mount ;  *  the  ethical  prin- 
ciples of  the  kingdom.  chaps.  5-7 

3.  A  group  of  events,  each  of  which  either  illus- 
trates   or    attests    the    authority    which    in    the 

sermon  he  has  assumed.  8 :  i — 9 :  34 

a)  A  leper  cleansed.  8:1-4 

b)  The  centurion's  servant  healed.  8:5-13 

c)  Peter's  wife's  mother  healed.  8:  14-18 

d)  Answers  to  disciples  about  following  him.  8:19-22 

e)  The  stilling  of  the  tempest.  8:  23-27 
/)  The  Gadarene  demoniacs.  8 :  28-34 
g)  A  paralytic  healed  and  his  sins  forgiven.*  9:  1-8 
h)  The  call  of  Matthew.  9:9-13 
i)  Answer  concerning  fasting.  9:  14-17 
/)  A    ruler's    daughter    raised,    and    a    woman 

healed.  9:  18-26 

k)  Two    blind    men    and    a    dumb    demoniac 

healed.  9 :  27-34 

4.  Discourse   to   the   twelve    apostles    on    sending 

them  out ;  the  proclamation  of  the  kingdom.        9 :  35 — 10 :  42 

5.  Events  showing  the  attitude  of  various  persons 
toward  the  gospel,  and  teaching  concerning  the 

spirit  in  which  the  gospel  must  be  received.        chaps.  11,  12 

a)  Jesus'  answer  to  the  message  from  John  the 

Baptist.  11:1-6 

b)  The  captious  spirit  of  the  Jews  condemned 

by  Jesus.  11 :  7-19 

c)  Woes  against  the  cities  which  had  not  re- 
pented at  the  preaching  of  Jesus.  11 :  20-24 

d)  The  thanksgiving  of  Jesus  that  the  gospel 
is  plain  to  the  simple-minded,  and  his  invita- 
tion to  the  heavy-laden.  11 :  25-30 

"  It  is  worthy  of  notice  that  each  alternate  section  of  this  Part  III 
(see  2,  4,  6,  8)  is  a  discourse  of  Jesus :  all  of  these  discourses  treat  of 
the  kingdom  of  heaven,  and  together  constitute  an  exposition  of  the 
kingdom  in  its  various  phases. 

*  Note  here  the  relation  implied  between  power  and  authority. 


THE  PLAN  OF  THE  GOSPEL  23 

e)   Plucking  grain  on  the  sabbath ;    the  bigotry 

of  the  Pharisees  rebuked.  12 :  1-8 

/)  Healing  of  the  withered  hand  on  the  sab- 
bath ;  bigotry  issuing  in  murderous  pur- 
pose. 12:9-14 

g)  Jesus    heals    many ;     the    gentleness    of    his 

ministry.  12:15-21 

h)  Jesus  heals  a  blind  and  dumb  demoniac;  the 
Pharisees  charge  him  with  collusion  with 
Satan,  and  Jesus  warns  them  of  the  danger 
of  blasphemy  against  the  Holy  Spirit.  12  :  22-37 

i)  The  Pharisees  seek  a  sign ;   Jesus' answer.  12:38-42 

y)  The  man  from  whom  the  unclean  spirit  has 

gone  out;   a  parable  of  the  Jewish  nation.  12:  43-45 

k)  The  real  basis  of  relationship  to  Christ.  12 :  46-50 

6.  Discourse   of   parables,    chiefly    concerning   the 

growth  of  the  kingdom.  13 :  1-S2 

7.  The  events  of  the  latter  part  of  the  Galilean 
ministry,  illustrating  especially  the  increasing 
unbelief  and  opposition  of  the  Pharisees,  and  the 
instruction   of  the   disciples,   particularly    from 

16:  21  "  on,  in  preparation  for  his  death.  13  :  53 — 17  :  27 

^"  Chap.  16:  21  marks  an  epoch  which  is  in  a  sense  more  important 
than  that  indicated  at  19:  i,  and  there  is  certainly  something  to  be  said 
for  the  view  that  the  author  meant  to  mark  here  the  beginning  of  a  new 
division  of  his  book  and  of  a  new  period  of  the  work  of  Jesus,  character- 
ized by  the  preparation  of  his  disciples  for  his  death,  as  the  ministry  up 
to  this  time  had  been  mainly  devoted  to  the  proclamation  of  the  kingdom 
to  the  people  (cf.  4:  17,  and  notice  the  similarity  of  the  phrase  to  that 
nsed  in  16:21).  Yet,  on  the  whole,  it  seems  probable  that  the  great 
divisions  of  the  book  are  made  on  the  basis  of  external  characteristics, 
mainly  geographical.  The  periods  thus  made  are  marked  in  general  by 
distinctive  internal  characteristics  also.  In  the  case  of  the  close  of  the 
Galilean  ministry,  however,  the  change  in  internal  characteristics  ante- 
dates somewhat  the  change  of  place.  At  the  time  denoted  by  16:  21  it 
is  already  clear  that  he  must  die  at  the  hands  of  the  Jews,  and  in  Jeru- 
salem ;  and,  moreover,  that  the  minds  of  his  disciples  must  be  prepared 
for  this  event.  From  this  time  on,  the  evangelist  indicates,  this  pre- 
paration fills  a  prominent   place  in  Jesus'  work,   and   his   face   is   in   a 


24        THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  MATTHEW 

a)  The  unbelief  of  the  Nazarenes.  1.3  :  53-58 

b)  The  death  of  John  the  Baptist  at  the  hands 

of  Herod.  14:  1-12 

c)  The  feeding  of  the  five  thousand.  14:  13-22 
(/)  Jesus  walking  on  the  water,  and  Peter's  at- 
tempt to  do  so.  14:  23-36 

e)  Eating   with    unwashen   hands ;     the    Phari- 
sees' criticism,  and  Jesus'  answer.  15:  1-20 

f)  The  faith  of  a  Canaanitish  woman.  15  :  21-28 

g)  A  multitude  healed  by  the  sea  of  Galilee.  15:29-31 
h)  The  feeding  of  the  four  thousand.  15 '•  32-39 
i )   Pharisees    and    Sadducees    demand   a    sign ; 

Jesus'  answer.  16:  1-4 

j)  The  leaven  of  the  Pharisees  and  Sadducees ; 
Jesus'  warning  and  the  slowness  of  the  dis- 
ciples to  understand.  16:5-12 
k)   Peter's  confession  of  Jesus  as  the  Messiah.         16:  13-20 
/)  Jesus  begins  to  instruct  his  disciples  concern- 
ing his  death  and  resurrection.                                   16:  21-28 
m)   The  transfiguration,   wherein   Jesus   is   de- 
clared to  be  the  Son  of  God.                                       17:  1-13 
n)  The  epileptic  boy  healed.                                           17  :  14-21 
0)  Jesus  again  foretells  his  death.                               17:22,23 
p)   The  payment  of  the  temple  tax  and  Jesus' 
instruction  of   Peter  concerning  relation  to 
the  temple  worship.                                                       17  :  24-27 
8.    Discourse  on   ambition,  humility,  and   forgive- 
ness ;    the  personal  relations  of  the  citizens  of 
the  kingdom  to  one  another.                                             chap.  18 
IV.    Journey   through    Perea    to   Jerusalem.     Jesus 
continues  the  instruction  of  his  disciples,  especially 
in  the  latter  part,  concerning  his  death.                       chaps.  19,  20 

1.  The  departure  from  Galilee.  19:  1,2 

2.  Answer  to  questions  concerning  divorce.  19:3-12 
sense  toward  Jerusalem,  where  he  is  to  die.  The  change  in  the  character 
of  his  teaching  and  the  change  of  place  both  result  from  the  same 
cause  ;  yet  it  is  not  unnatural  that  the  former  should  precede  the  latter 
hy  a  brief  interval. 


THE  PLAN  OF  THE  GOSPEL  25 

3.  Christ  blesses  little  children,  and  reproves  his 
disciples.  19:  13-15 

4.  Answer    to    the    rich    young    man    concerning 

eternal  life.  19 :  16-22 

5.  Instruction  to  the  disciples  concerning  riches  as 

an  obstacle  to  entrance  into  the  kingdom.  19 :  23-26 

6.  Concerning   the    rewards    of    discipleship.  19:27 — 20:16 

7.  Jesus  foretells  his  crucifixion.  20:  17-19 

8.  The  ambition  of  James  and  John,  and  Jesus' 
answer  concerning  suffering  and  rewards  in  his 

service.  20 :  20-28 

9.  The  two  blind  men  near  Jericho,  who  hail  Jesus 

as  son  of  David.  20 :  29-34 

V.  The  Closing  Ministry  in  Jerusalem.  [Passion 
week.]  Jesus'  last  offer  of  himself  to  the  nation  as 
the  Messiah,  and  his  final  rejection.  chaps.  21-27 

1.  Symbolic  proclamation  of  himself  as  the  Mes- 
siah. 21 :  1-17 

a)  The  triumphal  entry.  21:1-11 

b)  The  cleansing  of  the  temple.  21  :  12-17 

2.  Symbolic  prediction  to  the  disciples  of  the  rejec- 
tion of  the  nation.  21 :  18-22 

3.  The  mutual  rejection.  The  Jews  resist  the  claim 
of  Jesus ;  he  reiterates  warning  and  pre- 
diction. 21 :  23 — 23  :  39 

a)  The    Jews'    challenge    of    his    authority    to 

cleanse  the  temple,  and  his  answer  to  them.        21 :  23-27 

b)  Three  parables  of  warning.  21:28 — ^22:14 
(i)  The  parable  of  the  two  sons.  21 :  28-32 

(2)  The   parable   of   the   husbandmen,    pre- 
dicting the  rejection  of  the  nation.  21  :  33-46 

(3)  The    parable    of    the    marriage    of    the 

king's  son.  22  :  1-14 

c)  Three  questions  of  the  Jewish  rulers.  22:  15-40 

(1)  Concerning  paying  tribute.  22:  15-22 

(2)  Concerning  the  resurrection.  22  :  2:^-33 

(3)  Concerning  the  greatest  commandment.        22  :  34-40 


26        THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  MATTHEW 

(/)  Jesus'  question  concerning  the  Christ.  22:41-46 

e)  Jesus'  great  discourse  against  the  Pharisees.  chap.  23 

4.  Prophetic  discourse  to  the  disciples  concerning 

the  end  of  the  nation  and  the  end  of  the  age.      chaps.  24,  25 

5.  Preparation  for  the  death  of  Jesus.  26:  1-46 

a)  By    his    enemies;     the    plot    to    put    him    to 

death.  26:  1-5 

b)  By  his   friends;    the  anointing.  26:6-13 

c)  By  Judas;   the  bargain  to  betray  him.  26:14-16 

d)  By  Jesus  himself.  26:  17-46 
(i)   The  last  supper.  26:  17-30 

(2)  The  warning  to  the  disciples.  26:  31-35 

(3)  The  prayer  and  the  agony.  26:36-46 

6.  The  consummation  of  the  rejection  of  Jesus  by 

the  Jews.  26 :  47 — 27  :  66 

a)  The  arrest.  26 :  47-56 

b)  The  trial.  26:57 — 27:31 

c)  The  crucifixion  and  the  death.  27  :  32-56 

d)  The  burial.  27  :  57-61 

e)  The  watch  at  the  tomb.  27  :  62-66 
VI.   The  Appearances  of  Jesus  after  the  Resurrec- 
tion.    The  triumph  of  the  Messiah  over  his  ene- 
mies and  the  commission  of  the  disciples  to  win  all 

nations  to  bim.  chap.  28 

1.  The  appearance  on  the  resurrection  morning.  28:  i-io 

2.  The  report  of  the  watch ;    attempt  of  the  Jews 

to  suppress  the  evidence.  28:  11-15 

3.  The  appearance  in  Galilee;    the  commission  of 

the  disciples.  28 :  16-20 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  MARK 
I.   THE  AUTHOR 

The  second  gospel,  like  the  first,  contains  in  itself  no 
statement  of  its  authorship.  Reserving  for  brief  mention 
at  a  later  point  the  testimony  of  ancient  tradition  to  the 
name  and  identity  of  the  author,  we  consider  first  the  evi- 
dence which  the  book  itself  furnishes  concerning  the  char- 
acteristics and  point  of  view  of  its  writer. 

I.  His  nationality  as  it  appears  in  the  book  itself. — 
Clear  indications  of  the  nationality  of  the  author  are 
rare  and  hardly  decisive.  His  references  to  Jewish 
affairs  and  to  Palestinian  localities  imply  a  familiarity 
with  both  such  as  would  be  most  natural  in  the  case  of  a 
Palestinian  Jew,  but  would  not  be  impossible  to  a  gentile, 
especially  a  Christian  gentile  who  had  lived  in  Palestine, 
or  even  to  one  who  had  obtained  his  knowledge  of  these 
things,  along  with  his  knowledge  of  the  life  of  Jesus,  from 
one  who  had  been  a  resident  of  Palestine.  In  other  words, 
the  evidence  suggests  a  Palestinian  author  or  a  Palestinian 
source  of  the  narrative. 

Thus  the  book  speaks  of  Judea,  Jerusalem,  and  the 
wilderness  that  was  in  that  vicinity  (i  14,  5,  12;  10:32; 
1 1  :  I  ;  1 1  :  27)  ;  of  the  river  Jordan  ( i  :  4,  9)  ;  of  Jericho 
(10:46);  of  Bethany  (11  :i,  12)  and  the  Mount  of 
Olives  (11  :i:  13:3);  of  Galilee  (1:9,  14,  28,  39; 
S'.y;  9 :  30)  and  the  Sea  of  Galilee  (1:16;  3:7;  4:1, 
35-41;    5:1,21;   6:45,  47  ff.;    7:31);    of  the  cities  of 


28  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  MARK 

Galilee,  Nazareth  (1:9;  cf.  i  124  and  6:1),  Capernaum 
(1:21;  2:1:  9:33),  implying  in  the  connection  that 
it  was  on  or  near  the  Sea  of  Galilee  (with  1:21  cf.  1:16, 
and  with  2:1  cf.  2:  13),  but  adding  no  description  of  its 
location  {cf.  Matt.  4:13  ff.),  and  Dalmanutha;^  of  the 
tract  of  Gennesaret  (6:53),  ^"<^  o^  the  regions  adjacent 
to  Judea  and  Galilee  ( 3  :  7,  8 ;  5  :  i ,  ^  20 ;  7 :  24,  3 1 ;  8:27; 
9:2;  10:1).  The  author  makes  occasional  incidental 
reference  to  the  political  status  and  rulers  of  Judea  and 
Galilee  (6 :  14 ;  ^  6  :  17 ;  ■*  15:1  ff.  ^) .  He  refers  somewhat 
frequently  to  the  parties  and  classes  of  people  among  the 
Jews,  as  also  to  Jewish  customs  and  usages,  usually  with- 
out comment  or  explanation  (1:22,  44;  2:6,  18,  24; 
3:6,  22;  5:22,  35;  7:i-i3;«  8:11,  15,  31:  io:2ff.,  33; 
11:15,27;  I2:i3ff.,  18,28,38-40;  13;  I ;  14:1,  12  ff.,  53 

^  The  location  of  Dalmanutha  has  never  been  satisfactorily  deter- 
mined.    See  Henderson  in  Hastings,  Dictionary  of  the  Bible. 

^  Cf.  chap,  i,  p.  2,  n.  2. 

^  The  designation  of  Herod  Antipas  as  king  is  inaccurate,  but 
follows  perhaps  the  popular  manner  of  speech. 

*  According  to  Josephus,  Antiquities,  xviii,  5,  4,  Herodias  was  the 
wife,  not  of  Philip,  tetrarch  of  the  northeastern  provinces,  but  of  his 
half-brother  Herod,  who  lived  and  died  a  private  person.  Mark's  state- 
ment must  be  explained  either  by  supposing  that  this  Herod  was  also 
known  as  Philip  (he  was  the  son  of  a  different  mother  from  Philip  the 
tetrarch)  or  by  attributing  it  to  a  confusion  between  Herod  the  husband 
of  Herodias  and  his  brother  Philip,  husband  of  her  daughter,  Salome, 
who  is  also  referred  to  in  this  passage.  See  Headlam  in  Hastings, 
Dictionary  of  the  Bible,  art.  "  Herod,"  Vol.  I,  pp.  359a,  360ft. 

"  Concerning  this  statement  of  Pilate's  custom,  see  chap,  i,  p.  8 ; 
but  observe  also  that  Mark's  language  even  less  than  Matthew's  intimates 
that  this  was  a  general  custom  of  the  procurators  of  Judea. 

"  In  this  passage  vss.  3,  4  contain  an  explanation  of  Jewish  custom, 
implying,  however,  not  so  much  a  non-Jewish  writer  as  non-Jewish 
readers.     See  also   12:18  and   15:42. 


THE  AUTHOR  29 

ff. ;  15:1,  10,  II,  31,  42,  43.  In  four  passages  he  uses 
Aramaic  words,  in  each  case  explaining  them  (5:41; 
7:11,  34;  15:34;  cf.  15:42,  where,  though  the  word  is 
not  Aramaic,  but  a  Greek  word  used  in  a  technical  Jewish 
sense,  he  explains  its  meaning).  To  these  positive  evi- 
dences may  be  added  the  negative  fact  of  the  almost  total 
absence  of  quotations  from  the  Old  Testament  scriptures." 
which  suggests  either  that  the  writer  was  not  a  Jew  or 
that  he  was  writing  specially  for  non- Jewish  readers. 

2.  The  author's  relation  to  the  events. —  It  has  fre- 
quently been  pointed  out  that  the  narrative  of  this  gospel 
abounds  in  details  of  time,  place,  and  circumstances,  and 
the  feelings  and  manner  of  Jesus  and  the  other  persons  of 
the  narrative  (1:13,  20,  41;  3 : 5,  9,  19-21;  4:35-41; 
5  :  3-5,  etc. ) .  These  details,  though  sometimes  explained 
as  the  work  of  the  writer's  fancy,  are  more  justly  regarded 
as  indicating  that  the  writer  was  an  eyewitness  of  the 
events  or  drew  his  material  from  those  who  were  such. 

3.  His  religious  position. —  That  the  writer,  whatever 
his  nationality,  was  a  Christian  is  evident  from  his  first 
phrase,  "  The  beginning  of  the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ,  the 
Son  of  God,"  and  is  confirmed  by  the  tone  of  the  whole 
book.     Citation  of  particular  passages  is  unnecessary. 

But  none  of  this  evidence  suffices  to  locate  the  author 
definitely.  VVe  may,  then,  properly  inquire  whether  there 
is  any  outside  evidence  that  will  lead  us  to  some  more 
definite  conclusion.     This  brings  us  to  — 

'  The  only  quotation  in  this  gospel  made  by  the  evangelist  himself 
is  that  in  1:2,  3  ;  the  words  in  the  A.  V.  15  :  28  do  not  belong  to  the 
true  text,  and  all  the  other  quotations  of  Scripture  language  occur  in  his 
report  of  the  language  of  others,  usually  of  Jesus.  Of  these  a  list  of 
twenty-three,  besides  forty-four  briefer  references  to  the  Old  Testament, 
is  given  in  Swete,  Gospel  according  to  St.  Mark,  pp.  Ixx  ff. 


30  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  MARK 

4.  The  testimony  of  tradition  concerning  the  author- 
ship of  the  hook. —  This  is  conveyed  to  us  in  two  ways. 

a)  The  ancient  manuscripts  of  this  gospel  uniformly 
bear  the  title  Kara  MapKov,  "  According  to  Mark,"  or 
Ei'a77€\toi/  Kara  MapKov,  "  Gospel  according  to  Mark,"  or 
its  equivalent.^ 

b)  Ancient  writers,  from  Papias  on,  speak  of  a  gospel 
of  Mark,  but  almost  as  constantly  represent  the  apostle 
Peter  as  the  chief  source  of  his  information.  Though  the 
earliest  of  these  writers  do  not  by  description  or  quotation 
definitely  identify  the  book  to  which  they  refer  with  our 
present  second  gospel,  yet  the  testimonies  constitute  a 
continuous  series  down  to  the  latter  part  of  the  second 
century,  when  abundant  quotations  identify  it  beyond  all 
question.  The  following  are  some  of  the  most  ancient  of 
these  testimonies : . 

And  the  presbyter  also  said  this :  Mark,  having  become  the 
interpreter  of  Peter,  wrote  accurately  whatever  he  remembered,  not, 
however,  recording  in  order  the  things  that  were  said  or  done  by  the 
Christ.  For  neither  did  he  hear  the  Lord,  nor  did  he  follow  him; 
but  afterward,  as  I  said,  [he  followed]  Peter,  who  adapted  his  teach- 
ing to  the  need  of  the  occasion,  but  not  as  if  he  were  making  a  sys- 
tematic arrangement  of  the  words  of  the  Lord.  So  that  Mark  did  not 
err  at  all  in  writing  some  things  as  he  remembered  them.  For  he 
was  careful  for  one  thing,  not  to  pass  over  any  of  the  things  that  he 
had  heard  or  to  state  anything  falsely  in  them.  (Eusebius,  H.  E., 
iii,  39,  quoted  from  Papias.) 

Matthew  indeed  published  a  written  gospel  also  among  the 
Hebrews  in  their  own  dialect,  while  Peter  and  Paul  in  Rome  were 
preaching  the  gospel  and  founding  a  church.  But  after  the  departure 
of  these,  Mark  the  disciple  and  interpreter  of  Peter,  he  also  having 
written  the  things  preached  by  Peter,  transmitted  them  to  us.  (Euse- 
bius, H.  E.,  V,  8,  quoted  from  Iren.5:us.) 

"  See  chap,  i,  p.  8,  n.  7. 


THE  AUTHOR  31 

So  greatly,  however,  did  the  light  of  piety  enlighten  the  minds 
of  Peter's  hearers  that  it  was  not  sufficient  to  hear  but  once,  or  to 
receive  the  unwritten  teaching  of  the  divine  preaching,  but  with  all 
manner  of  entreaties  they  importuned  Mark,  whose  gospel  we  have, 
and  who  was  a  follower  of  Peter,  that  he  should  leave  them  in  writ- 
ing a  memorial  of  the  teaching  which  had  been  orally  communicated 
to  them.  Nor  did  they  cease  their  solicitations  until  they  had  pre- 
vailed with  the  man,  and  thus  became  the  cause  of  that  writing  which 
is  called  the  gospel  according  to  Mark.  They  say  also  that  the 
apostle  [Peter],  having  learned  what  had  been  done,  the  Spirit  having 
revealed  it  to  him,  was  pleased  with  the  zeal  of  the  men  and  author- 
ized the  work  for  use  by  the  churches.  This  is  stated  by  Clement  in 
the  sixth  book  of  his  Institutions,  and  is  corroborated  by  Papias, 
bishop  of  Hierapolis.     (Eusebius,  H.  E.,  ii,  15.) 

Paul  therefore  had  Titus  as  his  interpreter,  as  also  the  blessed 
Peter  had  Mark,  whose  gospel  was  composed  Peter  narratmg  and  he 
[Mark]  writing.     (Jerome,  Epistola  cxx,  ad  Hedibiam.Y 

Despite  the  inconsistencies  of  these  statements  with 
one  another  as  to  the  extent  and  character  of  Peter's 
influence  on  the  gospel,  it  is  entirely  evident  that  the  early 
church  both  attributed  this  gospel  to  Mark  and  believed 
that  he  was  in  some  way  indebted  for  his  facts,  in  part  at 
least,  to  the  apostle  Peter.  The  Mark  referred  to  in  the 
tradition  is  undoubtedly  the  John  Mark  spoken  of  in  the 
New  Testament  in  Acts  12  :  12,  25  ;  13:5,13;  15:37,39; 
Col.  4:10,  11;  Philem.  24 ;  i  Pet.  5:13;  2  Tim.  4:11. 
From  these  passages  it  appears  that  Mark  was  a  contem- 
porary of  Jesus,  but  probably  only  to  a  limited  extent  an 
eyewitness  of  the  events  of  Jesus'  life. 

These  three  factors  of  the  evidence  —  the  internal 
evidence  of  the  book,  the  testimony  of  tradition,  and  the 
statements  of  the  New  Testament  concerning  Mark  —  are 
self-con  si  stent,  and,  though  not  amounting  to  a  demon- 

'  For  other  testimonies  of  antiquity  see  Charteris,  Canonicity. 


32  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  MARK 

stratioii,  certainly  afford  reasonable  ground  for  the  con- 
clusion that  we  have  in  the  second  gospel  a  work  of  John 
Mark,  at  different  times  a  companion  of  Peter  and  of 
Paul ;  a  work  based  in  considerable  part  on  the  discourses 
of  the  apostle  Peter  to  which  Mark  had  listened,  and  in 
which  Peter  had  related  many  things  concerning  the  life 
of  Jesus.  It  is  presumably  to  Peter  that  the  narrative  is 
indebted  for  most  of  those  details  that  suggest  an  eye- 
witness. What  other  sources  Mark  may  have  had  it  is 
impossible  now  to  determine.^*^ 

II.       THE   READERS   FOR   WHOM    THE   BOOK    WAS   INTENDED 

Reference  has  already  been  made  to  the  internal  indi- 
cations that  the  second  gospel  was  intended,  not  for 
Jewish  readers,  but  for  gentiles.  The  almost  total  absence 
of  quotations  from  or  references  to  the  Old  Testament  in 
the  words  of  the  evangelist  himself,  the  absence  of  any 
special  adaptation  of  the  narrative  or  of  the  teachings  of 
Jesus  to  the  Jewish  need  or  point  of  view,  such  as  is  so 
conspicuous  in  the  first  gospel,  together  with  the  occa- 
sional explanation  of  Jewish  customs  and  modes  of 
thought  (7:2,  3;  12:18),  and  of  Aramaic  words  or 
Jewish  technical  terms  (3 :  17;  5:41;  7:11,34;  15:34, 
42^^),  all  suggest  that  the  author  has  in  mind  that  his 

'"  The  view  of  Badham,  St.  Mark's  Indebtedness  to  St.  Matthew, 
that  the  picturesque  details  of  Mark's  gospel  are  embellishments  added 
by  the  evangelist  to  narratives  taken  from  an  older  source,  and  that  of 
Wendt,  Lehre  Jesu,  Part  I,  pp.  9-44,  especially  pp.  10,  36,  41,  43,  that 
the  sources  of  Mark  to  the  number  of  eight  can  be  discovered  by  literary 
analysis,  both   seem   to   me   wholly   improbable. 

"Saravaj  in  i  :  13,  Beefe/3oi;\  in  3  :  22,  'Va^^ovvd  in  10:  51,  are  left 
without  explanation,  the  first  two  probably  as  being  proper  names  which 
required  no  explanation,  the  latter  perhaps  as  a  word  sufficiently  known, 
even  among  non-Jewish   Christians,   not  to   require  explanation.     'A)3/3(£ 


THE  PURPOSE  OF  THE  WRITER  33 

book  will  be  read  by  gentiles  rather  than  by  Jews.  With 
this  agrees  also  the  incidental  testimony  of  tradition 
quoted  above.  Nor  is  there  anything  specially  improbable 
in  the  tradition  that  Mark  wrote  at  Rome  and  for  Romans. 
The  occurrence  of  Latin  words  in  the  gospel  has  also  been 
said  to  confirm  this  tradition,  but  quite  clearly  without 
sufficient  ground.  Although  it  contains  ten  Latin  words, 
seven  of  these  {mudiiis,  4:21;  legio,  5:9,  15;  denarius, 
6:37;  12:15;  14-5 j  census,  12:14;  quadrans,  12:42; 
-flagello,  15:15;  praetoriiun,  15:16)  are  common  to  one 
or  more  of  the  other  gospels  and  only  three  {speculator, 
6:27;  sextarius,  7:4,  8;  centurio,  15:39,  44,  45)  are 
peculiar  to  Mark. 

Whether  the  gospel  was  intended  for  gentile  Chris- 
tians or  for  non-Christian  gentiles  can  be  determined,  if 
at  all,  only  on  the  basis  of  the  evidence  for  the  purpose  of 
the  book,  which  is  still  to  be  considered. 

III.      THE  PURPOSE  WITH  WHICH  THE  BOOK  WAS  WRITTEN 

In  the  absence  of  any  statement  by  the  author  of  the 
purpose  with  which  he  wrote,  it  is  necessary  to  appeal 
solely  to  the  evidence  afforded  by  the  content  and  arrange- 
ment of  the  book,  and  by  the  emphasis  which  it  lays  upon 
certain  ideas  or  elements  of  the  narrative. 

At  the  outset,  in  the  phrase  which  in  effect  contains 

in  14 :  36  is  explained  by  the  immediately  following  6  Trarrip,  though 
this  is  perhaps  not  a  mere  explanatory  addition.  Cf.  Swete,  The  Gospel 
according  to  St.  Mark,  ad  loc.  On  the  general  subject  of  Aramaic  in  the 
New  Testament  see  Kautzsch,  Grammatik  des  Bibiisch-Aramdischen, 
pp.  7-12;  Neubauer,  "  Dialects  Spoken  in  Palestine,"  in  Studia  Biblica, 
Vol.  I,  pp.  39  ft.,  especially  p.  56 ;  Schurer,  History  of  the  Jewish 
People,  Div.  II,  Vol.  I,  pp.  8-10;  3d  German  ed..  Vol.  II,  pp.  18-20; 
Dai.man,  Words  of  Jesus,  pp.  1-42. 


34  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  MARK 

the  title  of  tlie  book,  Jesus  is  characterized  as  the  Christ, 
tlie  Son  of  God,^-  and  in  the  first  event  in  which  Jesus 
himself  appears  he  heard  the  voice  from  heaven  saying  to 
him :  "  Thou  art  my  beloved  son ;  in  thee  I  am  well 
pleased."  This  naturally  raises  the  question  whether  the 
first  line  of  the  gospel  does  not  express  the  proposition 
which  it  is  the  purpose  of  the  author  in  the  rest  of  the 
book  to  prove.  But  does  the  book,  as  a  whole,  justify  an 
affirmative  answer  to  this  question?  Certainly  the  book 
is  not  in  form  an  argument  framed  to  support  this  proposi- 
tion. Nor  is  it  true  that  in  the  narrative  Jesus  is  repre- 
sented as  affirming  this  proposition  at  the  outset,  and  then 
devoting  his  ministry  to  the  advancing  of  evidence  to 
sustain  it.  But  neither  of  these  facts  quite  answers  the 
question  of  the  author's  purpose.  It  is  necessary  to  dis- 
tinguish between  the  purpose  which  the  writer  aimed  to 
accomplish  and  the  form  in  which  he  presented  his 
material,  as  well  as  between  the  proposition  which  the 
writer  puts  in  the  forefront  of  his  book  and  that  which 
Jesus  put  in  the  forefront  of  his  ministry.  What  proposi- 
tion the  writer  aimed  to  prove,  or  what  impression  he 
aimed  to  make,  or  what  result  he  desired  to  accomplish, 
can  be  answered  only  by  a  careful  study  of  the  contents 
and  structure  of  the  book,  and  to  this  we  must  turn. 

"  The  words  "  Son  of  God  "  {vioO  Oeov)  are  lacking  in  a  very  few 
ancient  authorities.  Westcott  and  Hort  place  them  in  the  margin, 
expressing  the  opinion  that  neither  reading  can  be  safely  rejected.  The 
strong  evidence  in  their  favor,  and  the  early  recognition  of  Jesus  as  Son 
of  God  in  the  narrative,  seem  to  justify  the  treatment  of  this  characteri- 
zation as  reflecting  the  author's  conception  of  Jesus.  Svvete,  The  Gospel 
according  to  St.  Mark,  pp.  Ix,  i,  expresses  the  opinion  that  the  whole 
of  this  verse  is  probably  due  to  a  later  hand.  But  this  is  a  conjecture 
for  which  there  is  no  external  evidence. 

N 


THE  PURPOSE  OF  THE  WRITER  35 

After  a  brief  account  of  the  ministry  of  John  the  Bap- 
tist, and  an  equally  condensed  narrative  of  the  baptism 
and  temptation  of  Jesus,  the  narrative  passes  at  once  into 
his  Galilean  ministry.  This  ministry  begins  with  the 
announcement  of  the  approach  of  the  kingdom  and  a 
command  to  the  people  to  repent.  Jesus  teaches  the 
people,  heals  the  sick,  casts  out  demons,  forgives  sin, 
gathers  disciples,  makes  for  himself  enemies.  Yet,  so 
far  as  the  record  shows,  he  gave  no  name  to  his  office, 
and  claimed  for  himself  no  title  but  *' Son  of  man,"^^ 
accepted  none  but  "Sir"  or  "Master." 

The  effect  of  this  evangelistic  and  healing  work  of 
Jesus  was  twofold.  On  the  one  hand,  multitudes  followed 
him,  chiefly  to  be  healed;  a  few  disciples  attached  them- 
selves to  him,  and  from  these  he  selected,  after  a  time,  the 
Twelve  whom  he  instructed  and  sent  out  to  do  the  same 
kind  of  work  that  he  himself  was  doing.  From  these 
Twelve  he  called  forth  at  length  on  the  journey  to  Csesarea 
Philippi  what  was  apparently  their  first  explicit  and  intel- 

"  Into  the  much-disputed  question  what  the  term  "  Son  of  man  " 
meant,  as  used  by  Jesus  of  himself,  there  is  not  space  to  enter  here.  It 
it  perhaps  sufficient  to  observe  that  in  view  of  the  reticence  concerning 
his  messiahship  which,  according  to  this  gospel,  Jesus  observed  almost 
to  the  end  of  his  ministry,  it  is  impossible  to  suppose  that  the  evangelist 
regarded  the  term  "  Son  of  man,"  by  which  Jesus  is  said  publicly  and 
almost  from  the  beginning  of  his  ministry  to  have  designated  himself, 
as  a  recognized  equivalent  of  "  Messiah."  That  the  possibility  that  he 
was  the  Messiah  was  early  discussed  among  the  people  (cf.  the  statement 
of  Luke  3:  15  concerning  John  the  Baptist,  and  the  titles  with  which, 
according  to  all  the  synoptists,  the  demoniacs  addressed  Jesus,  Mark 
3:11,  etc.)  is  not  intrinsically  improbable.  But  this  does  not  imply 
that  Jesus  had  declared  himself  to  be  the  Messiah,  and  it  is  worthy  of 
note  that  those  who  address  him  as  Messiah  never  employ  the  term 
"  Son  of  man." 


36  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  MARK 

ligent  acknowledgment  of  his  messiahship.'*  Then,  for- 
bidding his  disciples  to  speak  to  others  of  him  as  the 
Messiah,  he  went  on  to  instruct  them  further  concerning 
his  mission,  telling  them,  what  was  entirely  out  of  char- 
acter with  their  conception  of  the  Messiah,  that  he  must 
suffer  and  die,  rejected  by  his  nation,  and  that  they,  as  his 
disciples,  must  be  ready,  with  like  devotion  to  the  interests 
of  their  fellow-men,  to  suffer  a  like  fate.  From  this  time 
on  he  continued  his  instruction  of  the  disciples,  partly  in 
specific  preparation  of  them  for  his  death,  partly  in  the 
way  of  more  general  instruction  concerning  the  things  of 
the  kingdom. 

On  the  other  hand,  Jesus  met  with  opposition.  His 
own  family  thought  him  beside  himself;  his  fellow- 
townsmen  had  little  faith  in  him;  the  scribes  and  Phari-- 
sees  opposed  him,  at  tirst  not  pronouncedly,  but  with 
increasing  bitterness.  This  contrariety  of  result  was  in 
accordance  with  Jesus'  own  teaching  that  the  sowing  of 
the  seed  of  the  kingdom  would  be  followed,  not  by  uni- 
form harvests  of  good,  but  by  diverse  results  and  division 
of  households.  His  assumption  of  authority  in  the  temple, 

"  This  does  not  imply  that  the  disciples  had  not  from  the  first  sus- 
pected, or  even  believed,  that  Jesus  was  the  Christ ;  still  less  that  Jesus 
had  not  from  the  first  known  himself  to  be  the  Messiah.  The  representa- 
tion of  this  gospel  is  rather  that  Jesus  did  not  thrust  his  messianic  claim 
into  the  foreground  ;  did  not  make  recognition  of  it  a  test  and  condition 
of  discipleship  ;  did  not,  so  to  speak,  conduct  his  campaign  on  the  basis 
of  it ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  kept  it  in  the  background,  both  with  his 
disciples  and  with  the  people  at  large,  until  each  had  had  the  opportunity 
to  gain  from  Jesus'  own  conduct  and  character  a  conception  of  messiah- 
ship  somewhat  akin  to  his  own.  He  did  not  define  himself  by  the  term 
"  Messiah,"  but  he  defined  "  Messiah "  by  himself.  Thus  this  term 
represented  for  the  disciples,  as  they  grew  in  knowledge  of  their  Master, 
an  ever-changing  and  enlarging  conception. 


THE  PURPOSE  OF  THE  WRITER  37 

following  close  upon  his  triumphal  entry  into  Jerusalem, 
in  which  he  had  for  the  first  time  encouraged  and  planned 
the  public  declaration  of  him  as  the  Messiah,  fanned  into 
flame  the  opposition  of  his  enemies.  The  Pharisees,  who 
were  his  earliest  opponents,  joined  now  by  the  Sadducees 
and  chief  priests,  determined  upon  his  death.  His  trial 
gave  occasion  to  a  distinct  avowal  on  his  part  that  he  was 
the  Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  and  it  was  for  this  that  he  was 
condemned  to  death  by  the  Jewish  authorities. 

His  death,  in  which  the  opposition  to  him  culminates, 
was  speedily  followed  by  his  resurrection,^^  verifying  his 
prediction  and  vindicating  his  claims. 

Thus  the  book  gives  a  picture  of  the  public  career  of 
Jesus  which,  taken  as  a  whole,  has  a  clearly  defined  char- 
acter and  great  verisimilitude.  Possessing,  from  the 
moment  of  his  baptism,  the  first  event  in  which  he  appears 
in  the  gospel,  a  clear  definition  of  his  own  mission,  he 
moves  steadily  on  in  the  work  of  proclaiming  the  kingdom 

^^  Mark's  story  of  the  resurrection  is  incomplete  in  the  gospel  as  we 
have  it.  Chap.  16:8  is  the  end  of  that  which  we  have  reason  to  believe 
came  from  the  hand  of  Mark.  Yet  it  cannot  be  that  this  is  all  that  he 
wrote.  He  certainly  did  not  intend  to  close  his  gospel  with  the  words, 
"  They  were  afraid,"  and  with  no  account  at  all  of  an  appearance  of 
Jesus  after  his  resurrection.  But  the  remainder  of  what  he  wrote,  or 
intended  to  write,  has  in  some  way  failed  of  transmission  to  us. 
Instead  of  it  we  have  in  vss.  9-20  a  narrative  of  the  appearance  of  Jesus 
after  his  resurrection,  from  another  hand,  and  based,  perhaps,  on  the 
accounts  of  the  other  gospels.  For  fuller  discussion  of  the  genuineness 
and  authorship  of  this  passage  see  Westcott  and  Hort,  Greek  Testa- 
ment, II,  Appendix,  pp.  28-51  ;  Burgon,  The  Last  Twelve  Verses  of  St. 
Mark;  Salmon,  Introduction  to  the  New  Testament,  pp.  144-S1  ; 
Gould,  Commentary  on  Mark,  pp.  301-4;  Conybeare,  in  Expositor,  IV, 
viii,  p.  241  ;  IV,  x,  p.  219  ;  V,  ii,  p.  401  ;  Zahn,  Geschichte  des  nen- 
iestamtntlichen  Kanons,  Vol.  II,  pp.  910  ff. ;  Rohrbach,  Der  Schluss 
des  Markusevangeliums. 


38  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  MARK 

and  revealing  himself  to  men  who,  in  the  nature  of  the 
case,  could  receive  that  revelation  only  little  by  little.  Not 
by  argument,  not  chiefly  by  assertion,  but  by  his  life  he 
reveals  himself  and  his  conception  of  the  kingdom  and  the 
Messiah.  Winning,  by  this  revelation,  both  follow  ers  and 
foes,  he  teaches  his  disciples,  as  they  are  able  to  receive  it, 
what  his  work  and  fate  are  to  be,  and  what  theirs,  too, 
must  be.  and  moves  on,  with  clear  foresight  both  of  death 
and  of  triumph  over  death,  to  the  culmination  of  his  self- 
revelation  in  crucifixion  and  resurrection. 

It  is  thus  with  Jesus  in  his  public  career  that  this  book 
has  to  do.  There  is  no  story  of  the  infancy.  There  is  no 
genealogical  table  linking  Jesus  with  the  past  and  proving 
his  Abrahamic  and  Davidic  descent.  The  background  of 
the  life  is  Palestinian  and  Jewish,  as  it  must  have  been  to 
be  true  to  the  facts,  but  there  is  no  emphasis  upon  the 
relations  of  Jesus  to  Judaism  or  the  Old  Testament.  Quo- 
tations of  Jesus  from  the  Old  Testament  are  reported,  but 
the  evangelist's  own  use  of  it  is  limited  to  his  first  sen- 
tence. The  distinctly  Jewish  point  of  view,  so  clearly 
manifest  in  Matthew,  for  example,  is  wholly  lacking.  It 
is  not  Jesus  in  relation  to  the  past,  or  the  prophecies  of  the 
Messiah,  but  Jesus  as  he  appeared  to  his  contemporaries, 
a  figure  in,  and  a  factor  of,  the  history  of  his  own  times, 
that  this  gospel  presents  to  us.  The  narrative  is  confined 
wholly  to  the  most  active  period  of  Jesus'  life,  chiefly  to 
the  busy  Galilean  ministry  and  the  still  more  crowded 
passion  week.  It  is  rapid,  condensed,  abrupt.  It  reminds 
one  of  the  words  of  Peter:  "Jesus  of  Nazareth,  a  man 
approved  of  God  unto  you  by  mighty  works  and  wonders 
and  signs  which  God  did  by  him  in  the  midst  of  you  " 
(Acts  2:22),  and  "Jesus  of  Nazareth,  how  that  God 


THE  PURPOSE  OF  THE  WRITER  39 

anointed  him  with  Holy  Spirit  and  power,  who  went 
about  doing  good,  and  heaHng  all  that  were  oppressed  of 
the  devil ;  for  God  was  with  him  "  ( Acts  10 :  38) . 

Such  a  presentation  of  Jesus  has  all  the  value  of  an 
argument,  with  little  of  its  form,  and  possibly  with  no 
conscious  argumentative  aim.  The  structure  of  the  book 
seems  almost  wholly  unaffected  by  a  purpose  of  the  writer 
to  convince  his  readers  of  any  defined  proposition.  Not 
only  is  there  lacking,  as  also  in  Matthew,  the  strictly  argu- 
mentative structure,  but  there  is  little  indication  even  of 
the  arrangement  of  material  in  a  certain  order  to  facilitate 
the  production  of  a  certain  impression  (cf.  n.  16,  p.  41). 
Even  in  respect  to  the  plan  and  method  of  Jesus,  of  which 
the  book  gives  so  distinct  an  impression,  it  does  not  appear 
that  the  book  was  written  to  prove  that  such  was  Jesus' 
method,  but  rather  that  it  was  written  as  it  was  because 
such  was,  in  fact,  the  career  of  Jesus.  This  element  is  in 
the  book,  we  are  constrained  to  believe,  because  it  was  in 
the  life.  The  writer  tells  the  story  of  the  life  of  Jesus  as 
he  knows  it,  naturally  emphasizing  the  things  which  have 
impressed  him.  Because  it  has  impressed  him  it  will  im- 
press other  men  of  like  minds,  and  because  of  this  fact  it 
possesses  argumentative  value.  But  the  argument  is  latent 
rather  than  explicit.  There  are  men  today  to  whom 
closely  wrought  argument,  presenting  a  proposition  and 
sustaining  it  by  a  series  of  reasons,  means  little,  but  to 
whom  deeds  of  power  —  still  more,  a  career  of  power  — 
mean  much.  Such  men  are  impressionable  rather  than 
reflective,  emotional  rather  than  logical.  Such  a  man  the 
New  Testament  leads  us  to  believe  Peter  was,  and  there 
is  not  lacking  a  suggestion  that  John  Mark  was  a  man 
of  the  same  character.    Such  a  man,  at  any  rate,  we  judge 


40  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  MARK 

the  writer  of  this  gospel  to  have  been,  and  to  such  men 
especially  would  it  appeal.  It  is  adapted  to  lead  them  to 
share  the  author's  conviction,  announced  in  his  first  line, 
that  Jesus  was  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  God;  or,  if  they 
already  hold  it,  to  hold  it  more  firmly  and  intelligently. 
The  book  makes  its  appeal  to  the  reader  as  it  records  that 
Jesus  made  his  appeal  to  his  contemporaries,  not  by  argu- 
ment adduced  to  prove  his  messiahship,  but  by  the  simple 
presentation  of  the  life  itself,  leaving  this  life  to  make  its 
own  impression.  As  Jesus,  believing  from  the  beginning 
in  his  own  messiahship  and  divine  sonship,  convinced  his 
followers  of  it,  not  by  affirmation  or  by  argument,  but  by 
living,  so  the  evangelist,  holding  at  the  outset  to  the 
messiahship  of  Jesus,  depends,  not  on  formulated  argu- 
ment, but  on  the  story  of  the  life  to  carry  this  conviction 
to  his  readers.  The  book  dififers  in  this  respect  from  the 
life  only  in  the  incidental  announcement  of  its  thesis  in  its 
first  line. 

Is  such  a  book  intended  to  convince  unbelievers  or  to 
instruct  those  who  already  believe  ?  Certainly  it  could  be 
used  for  either  purpose.  But  the  absence  of  anything  like 
a  controversial  tone,  the  simple  straightforwardness  of 
the  story,  without  comment,  or  even  arrangement  for 
argumentative  purposes,  leads  us  to  think  of  it  as  a  book 
written  for  Christians  rather  than  for  unbelievers,  and 
chiefly  for  instruction  rather  than  for  conviction.  That  it 
was  intended,  as  it  has  been  maintained  in  chap,  i,  that 
Matthew  was,  to  play  a  part  in  the  controversies  of  the 
apostolic  age  of  which  we  learn  from  Acts  and  the  epistles, 
there  is  no  evidence.  The  writer  is  certainly  not  a  Juda- 
istic  Christian,  but  neither  does  he  show  any  distinctly 
anti-Judaistic  interest.     He  writes  in  an  atmosphere,  or 


THE  PLAN  OF  THE  BOOK  41 

from  a  point  of  view,  unaffected  by  these  controA-ersies. 
Its  aim  is  undoubtedly  edification,  but  it  seeks  this,  not  so 
much  by  convincing  its  readers  of  something  they  did  not 
believe,  or  even  by  setting  itself  to  confirm  a  conviction 
already  held,  as  by  informing  them  of  facts  which  are  use- 
ful to  them  to  know.  The  book  has  argumentative  value 
for  believers  and  unbelievers,  but  it  must  be  doubted 
whether  its  author  thought  of  it  as  argumentative  in  any 
sense. 

IV.       THE   PLAN    OF   THE   BOOK 

The  following  analysis  is  an  attempt  to  show  the 
contents  and  structure  of  the  book  as  it  lay  in  the  mind 
of  the  writer,  though  the  simplicity  of  the  plan  of  the 
book  renders  such  an  analysis  in  part  scarcely  more  than 
an  enumeration  of  sections.  Though  we  cannot  affirm 
that  Mark  has  in  all  cases  given  events  in  their  chrono- 
logical order,  there  is  little  or  nothing  to  show  that  he 
ever  intentionally  varied  from  the  order.^^    x\nd  the  rela- 

'"  At  one  point  only  in  the  gospel  is  there  any  considerable  indication 
of  arrangement  upon  a  topical  plan  involving  a  departure  from  chrono- 
logical order,  viz.,  in  2:1  —  3:6.  This  group  of  five  short  narratives 
certainly  does  exhibit  the  growth  of  the  hostility  of  the  scribes  and 
Pharisees  to  Jesus,  and  this  seems  to  be  clearly  the  link  of  connection 
joining  them.  That  they  should  have  occurred  thus  in  rapid  succession 
seems  somewhat  improbable,  and  the  plot  to  put  him  to  death  (3:6) 
strikes  one  as  strange  so  early  in  the  ministry.  It  is  possible  that  the 
grouping  here  was  that  of  one  of  Peter's  discovirses,  and  that  3  :  1-6,  or 
at  least  vs.  6,  is  anachronistically  narrated.  Even  this,  however,  must 
remain  only  a  conjecture,  and  the  general  order  of  events  in  Mark 
remains,  if  not  chronological,  yet  apparently  the  nearest  approximation 
to  such  an  arrangement  that  we  possess.  Cf.  Swete,  St.  Mark,  pp. 
liii  ff. ;    Bruce,  in  the  Expositor's  Greek  Testament,  Vol.  I,  pp.  27-32. 

For  an  attempt  to  discover  the  true  order  of  the  events  of  Jesus' 
ministry  on  the  basis  of  intrinsic  probability  and  in  large  part  inde- 
pendently of  the  order  of  any  of  the  evangelists,  see  Briggs,  A^^^c  Light 
on  the  Life  of  Jesus. 


42  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  MARK 

tions  af  events  to  one  another  —  the  causal  dependence  of 
later  events  upon  earlier  ones  —  constrains  us  to  believ^e 
that  not  only  is  the  succession  of  the  several  periods  of  the 
record  that  also  of  the  life,  but  that  within  these  periods 
the  order  is,  in  the  main,  that  of  the  events  themselves. 

ANALYSIS   OF  THE   GOSPEL 
I.    Introduction  :   Preparation  for  the  Public  Work 

01-  Jesus.  i  :  1-13 

1.  Preaching  of  John  the  Baptist.  1:1-8 

2.  Baptism  of  Jesus.  i :  9-11 

3.  Temptation  in  the  wilderness.  i :  12,  13  ' 
II.   The  Galilean  Ministry.                                              i  :  14 — 9:  50 

1.  The  work  begun  and  favorably  received.        /  i :  14-45 

a)  Jesus  begins  preaching  in  Galilee.  i :  14,  15 

b)  Call  of  the  four  fishermen.  i  :  16-20 

c)  A  sabbath  in  Capernaum.  i :  21-34 

d)  A  preaching  tour  in  Galilee.  i :  35-45 

2.  The  opposition  of  the  scribes  and  Pharisees  ex- 
cited and  rapidly  developed.  2 :  i — 3 :  6 

a)  A  paralytic  healed  and  his  sins  forgiven.  2 :  1-12 

b)  Call  of  Levi,  and  the  feast  in  his  house.  2:  13-17 

c)  Jesus'  answer  to  a  question  concerning  fast- 
ing. 2 :  18-22 

d)  Plucking  grain  on  the  sabbath.  2 :  23-28 

e)  A  withered  hand  healed  on  the  sabbath.  3:  1-6 

3.  The  beginnings  of  the  separation  between  the 
followers  of  Christ  and  the  rest  of  the  com- 
munity ;   the  organization  of  the  band  of  twelve 

personal  attendants  and  helpers.  3 :  7-35 

o)  The  widespread  fame  of  Jesus.  3:7-12 

b)  The  choosing  of  the  Twelve.  3:  13-19 

c)  Concerning  eternal  sin.  3  :  20-30 

d)  Natural  and  spiritual  kinsmen.  3  :  31-35 

4.  The  parables  of  the  kingdom's  growtli,  in  which 

is  also  illustrated  its  separating  power.  4:  1-34 


THE  PLAN  OF  THE  BOOK  43 

5.  Sundry  manifestations  of  his  power,  which  meet 
with  v^aried  reception,  some  beHeving,  some  un- 
beheving,  some  slow  to  believe.  4 :  35 — 6 :  6 

a)  Stilling  of  the  tempest.  4:35-41 

b)  The  Gerasene  demoniac.  '                    5:1-20 

c)  Jairus's  daughter  raised  to  life.  5 :  21-43 

d)  The  rejection  at  Nazareth.  6:  1-6 

6.  The  sending  out  of  the  Twelve  to  engage  in 

work  like  that  of  Jesus  himself.  6 :  7-29 

7.  The  continuance  of  Jesus'  work  in  Galilee,  with 
the  reappearance  of  the  same  features ;  he  heals 
and  feeds  the  multitudes ;  his  disciples  are  slow 
of  understanding;    the  multitudes  follow  him; 

the  Pharisees  oppose  him.  6 :  30 — 7  :  23 

a)  The  feeding  of  the  five  thousand.  6:  30-46 

b)  Jesus  walking  on  the  sea.  6:  47-52 

c)  Many  healed  in  Galilee.  6:53-56 

d)  On  eating  with  unwashen  hands.  7 :  1-23 

8.  A  withdrawal  from  Galilee  into  gentilje  territory, 

and  the  ready  faith  which  Jesus  finds  there.  7 :  24-37 

a)  The  Syrophoenician  woman's  daughter.  7:24-30 

b)  The  deaf  and  dumb  man  healed.  7:  31-37 

9.  Further  experiences  in  Galilee  in  which  the  same 

features  as  before  appear.  8:  1-26 

a)  The  feeding  of  the  four  thousand.  8:  i-io 

b)  Pharisees  demanding  a  sign  from  heaven.  8:11-21 

c)  A  blind  man  healed  near  Bethsaida.  8:22-26 
10.    A    second    withdrawal    from    Galilee :     tour   to 

Csesarea  Philippi  and  return  to  the  sea.  Jesus 
draws  out  from  Peter  the  confession  of  him  as 
the  Christ,  and  begins  to  teach  his  disciples  con- 
cerning his  own  sufferings,  and  the  conditions  of 
discipleship  to  him. 
o)    Peter's  confession  of  Jesus'  messiahship. 

b)  Jesus'  prediction  of  his  own  death  and  resur- 
rection. 

c)  The  transfiguration. 


27—9: 

50 

8 :  27-30 

:3r— 9 

:  I 

9:2- 

13 

44  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  MARK 

d)  The  demoniac  boy  healed.  9:  14-29 

e)  Jesus  again  foretells  his  death  and  resurrec- 
tion. 9 :  30-32 

/)   The  ambition  and  jealousy  of  the  disciples 

reproved.  9 : 33-50 

III.  The  Journey  from  Galilee  to  Judea,  and  instruc- 
tions on  the  way;    on  nearing  Jerusalem  Jesus  is 

publicly  saluted  as  son  of  David.  chap.  10 

1.  Departure  from  Galilee  into  Perea.  10:  I 

2.  Concerning  divorce.  10:2-12 

3.  Blessing  little  children.  10:13-16 

4.  The  rich  young  ruler.  10:17-31 

5.  Announcement  of  his  crucifixion.  10 :  32-34 

6.  Ambition  of  James  and  John  reproved.  10 :  35-45 

7.  The  blind  man  near  Jericho  healed.  10 :  46-52 

IV.  The  Ministry  in  Jerusalem  :  Jesus  causes  him- 
self to  be  announced  as  Messiah ;  comes  into  con- 
flict with  the  leaders  of  the  people ;    predicts  the 

downfall  of  the  Jewish  temple  and  capital.  chaps.  11-13 

1.  The  triumphal  entry;    Jesus  is  saluted  as  Mes- 
siah. II :  i-ii 

2.  The  cursing  of  the  fig  tree.  11 :  12-14 

3.  The  cleansing  of  the  temple.  11 :  15-19 

4.  Comment  on  the  withered  fig  tree.  11 :  20-25 

5.  Conflict  with  the  Jewish  leaders.  11:27 — 12:40 

a)  Christ's  authority  challenged.  11:27-33 

b)  The  parable  of  the  vineyard.  12:  1-12 

c)  Three  questions  by  the  Jewish  rulers.  12 :  13-34 

d)  Jesus'  question  concerning  David's  son.  ^^'35-37 

e)  Warning  against  the  scribes.  12:39,40 

6.  The  widow's  two  mites.  12:41-44 

7.  The  prophetic  discourse  concerning  the  down- 
fall of  the  temple  and  city.  chap.  13 

V.    The  Passion  History.  chaps.  14,  15 

1.  The  plot  of  the  Jews.  14:  1,2 

2.  The  anointing  in  the  house  of  Simon  the  leper.  14 :  3-9 

3.  The  bargain  of  Judas  with  the  Jewish  leaders.  14:  10,  11 


THE  PLAN  OF  THE  BOOK  45 

4.  The  last  passover  of  Jesus  and  his  disciples.  14:  12-26 

5.  Prediction  of  Peter's  denial.  14:27-31 

6.  The  agony  in  Gethsemane.  14 :  32-42 
The  betrayal  and  arrest.  14 ;  43-52 
The  trial  before  the  Jewish  authorities.  14:53-65 
The  denials  of  Peter.  14 ;  66-72 
The  trial  before  Pilate.  15 :  1-20 
The  crucifixion  and  the  death  of  Jesus.  15 :  21-41 
The  burial.  15 :  42-47 

VI.    The  Resurrection  of  Jesus,  a.ttested  by  the  empty 

tomb  and  the  word  of  the  young  man.  16 :  1-8 

Appendix  :     Summary  of  the  appearances  of  Jesus.  16 :  9-20 


CHAPTER   III 

THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  LUKE 
I.       THE  author's  preface 

lis  dealing  with  the  gospel  of  Luke  we  have  an 
advantage,  which  we  do  not  possess  in  the  case  of  either 
Matthew  or  Mark,  that  the  author  opens  his  book  with  a 
preface  which  is  rich  in  information  concerning  the  liter- 
ary and  historical  situation  out  of  which  the  book  arose : 

Forasmuch  as  many  have  taken  in  hand  to  draw  up  a  narrative 
concerning  those  matters  which  have  been  fuHilled  among  us,  even 
as  they  delivered  them  unto  us  which  from  the  beginning  were  eye- 
witnesses and  ministers  of  the  word,  it  seemed  good  to  me  also, 
having  traced  the  course  of  all  things  accurately  from  the  first,  to 
write  unto  thee  in  order,  most  excellent  Theophilus,  that  thou  might- 
est  know  the  certainty  concerning  the  things  wherein  thou  wast 
instructed. 

Postponing  to  a  later  chapter  the  fuller  discussion  of 
the  significance  of  the  preface  in  its  bearing  upon  the 
general  problem  of  the  origin  of  our  gospels,  we  may 
notice  here  its  clear  indication  that  this  gospel  was  by  no 
means  the  earliest  attempt  to  publish  a  narrative  of  the 
life  of  Jesus.  When  the  author  wrote,  not  only  was  that 
life  the  subject  of  instruction  in  the  church  (vs.  4),  but 
many  persons  had  already  undertaken  to  compose  a  narra- 
tive of  its  events  (vs.  i ).  The  author  of  this  gospel,  while 
recognizing  the  value  of  these  efforts,  conceives  also  that 
they  leave  something  still  to  be  desired,  and  writes,  after 
careful  investigation,  that  the  reader,  already  instructed 
in  the  facts  of  the  life  of  Jesus,  may  have  certain  knowl- 
edge of  these  things  wherein  he  had  received  instruction. 

46 


THE  AUTHOR  47 

It  is  evident,  not  only  that  the  statements  of  this  pref- 
ace have  a  direct  bearing  upon  the  question  for  whom 
and  with  what  purpose  the  gospel  was  written,  but  that 
its  distinct  intimation  that  the  author  possessed,  and  per- 
haps used,  older  gospel  writings  must  be  taken  into 
account  in  interpreting  the  indications  of  the  gospel  itself 
as  to  who  the  author  was.  We  must  be  prepared  to  con- 
sider whether  there  are  diverse  indications  of  authorship, 
and  to  determine,  as  far  as  we  may,  whether  any  given 
feature  of  the  narrative  is  traceable  to  the  final  author  who 
wrote  the  preface,  or  to  those  earlier  authors  of  whose 
writings  he  made  use.  Yet  first  of  all  we  must  examine 
the  gospel  as  it  stands  for  the  evidence  which  it  yields 
respecting  its  author,  intended  readers,  and  purpose. 

II.       THE   AUTHOR 

I.  His  nationality  as  it  appears  in  the  gospel  itself. — 
There  are  numerous  references  in  all  parts  of  the  gospel  to 
Palestinian  localities  (1:5,  26,  39;  2:4,  39,  41;  3:1,  3; 
4:16;  5:1,  17;  6:17;  7:11;  8:26;  10:13,  15;  17:11; 
18:35;  19:!' 29,  37,  41;  23:5-7;  24:13).  One  or  two 
of  the  localities  referred  to  cannot  be  certainly  identified,^ 
but  in  every  case  in  which  the  location  of  the  place  is 
known  the  reference  of  the  gospel  to  it  corresponds  to  its 
locality,  and  in  some  cases  the  correspondence  of  the  nar- 
ratives  to  the  local   conditions   is    somewhat    striking.^ 

^  On  Bethphage,  19:  29,  and  Emmaus,  24:  13,  see  the  Bible  diction- 
aries.    On  "  the  country  of  the  Gerasenes,"  8 :  26,  see  chap,  i,  p.  2,  n.  2. 

-On  4:31,  "down  to  Capernaum,"  observe  that  Nazareth  is  1,144 
feet  above  sea-level,  while  Capernaum  is  on  the  shore  of  the  Sea  of 
Galilee,  whch  is  682  feet  below  sea-level.  On  the  route  of  the  triumphal 
entry  as  described  by  Luke  in  19:37,  41  (these  details  are  peculiar  to 
him)  see  Stanley,  Sinai  and  Palestine,  pp.  186-90. 


48  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  LUKE 

Observe  also  the  reference  to  climate  in  12:54  ff.  To 
tliese  may  be  added  occasional  references  to  the  different 
elements  of  the  population  of  the  country  and  to  their 
relations  to  one  another  (7:2;   17:16,  18). 

A  considerable  number  of  the  geographical  references 
occur  in  passages  which  have  closely  parallel  narratives  in 
Matthew  or  Mark,  suggesting  the  possibility  that  the 
author's  geographical  knowledge  is  second-hand.  Yet  in 
some  of  these  cases  Luke  contains  a  definition  of  locality 
not  found  in  the  other  gospels  (4:31;  8  :  26) ,  or  an  alter- 
native name  (5  :  i),  and  there  are  a  number  of  correctly 
used  geographical  terms  in  passages  of  which  there  are  no 
parallels  in  the  other  gospels  (1:5,  26,  39;  2:4,  39,  41, 
etc.),  including  one  which  seems  very  clearly  of  an  edi- 
torial character  from  the  pen  of  the  final  author  (3:1). 
Taken  altogether,  the  evidence  suggests  at  least  such  a 
general  knowledge  of  the  country  as  enabled  the  author 
intelligently  to  use  and  edit  his  sources. 

The  gospel  frequently  speaks,  and  always,  so  far  as  we 
are  able  to  test  it.  correctly,  of  Jewish  history,  parties, 
institutions,  usages,-^  and  current  opinions.  Thus  the 
priests  and  the  temple  are  spoken  of  in  i  :  5,  8-1 1,  21-23; 
Z:2\  5:14;  6:4:  10:31  (c/.  3^):  17:14:  19:45-47; 
20: 1,  19;  21  : 1,  5  ;  22  :4,  52,  54,  66;  23  :  13  ;  the  Phari- 
sees, their  usages,  opinions,  and  characteristics,  in  5:  17, 
21,  30,  33;  6:2,  7;  7:30,  36 f¥.:  11:37-44;  12:1; 
14:1.3;  15:2:  16  :  14:  18  :  10.  1 1  :  19  :  39:  scribes  or 
lawyers,  in  5:17:  10:25;  ii:45-54:  14:3;  19:47; 
20:1,  19,  46;  22:2,  66;  the  Sadducees.  in  20:27;  the 
Sanhedrin.  in  9 :22;  20:19;   22:2,66:   23:13;   24:20; 

'  Concerning  a  possible  exception  to  this  statement  in  2 :  22-24,  see 
Appended  Note  III,  p.  74. 


THE  AUTHOR 


49 


the  publicans,  in  3:12;  5:27-30;  7:29;  18:10-13; 
19:2,  8;  the  Jewish  Scriptures,  in  2:23;  3:4;  4:4,  8. 
10,  12,  17-21;  7:27;  18:20,  31:  20:28,  37,  42;  24:27; 
characters  and  events  of  the  Old  Testament  narrative,  in 
4:25-27;  6:3.4.23;  9:8,19.30.33;  10:12-14;  11: 
29-32.  51;  13:28;  16:29-31;  17:26-29,  32;  recent 
events,  in  13  : 1-4;  probably  in  19  :  12  ;  the  custom  of  cir- 
cumcision, in  I  :  59-63 ;  2:21  ;  the  ceremonies  in  connec- 
tion with  the  birth  of  a  child,  in  2  :  22-27,  39 '  the  feast  of 
the  passover,  in  2:41-^1.6;  22:1,  7,  11.  13,  15;  syna- 
gogues and  their  officers,  in  4 :  15.  16-30,  33,  38,  44 ;  7:5; 
8:41,  49;  13:10.  14;  20:46;  current  opinions  and 
expectations,  in  3  :  15 ;  9:8.30;  13:28;  16:22;  18:38, 
39;  20:17-33. 

The  facts  respecting  the  use  of  Old  Testament  Scrip- 
ture in  this  gospel  are  somewhat  peculiar.  The  first  two 
chapters,  the  infancy  section,  are  full  of  language  mani- 
festly derived  from  the  Old  Testament.  This  is  especially 
true  of  the  utterances  of  the  angel,  of  Mary,  of  Zacharias, 
and  of  Simeon.  But  the  narrative  also  contains  Old 
Testament  language,  and  even  explicit  quotations  (2:23, 
24).  The  genealogical  table  in  chap.  3,  though  the  fact 
that  it  is  carried  back,  not  as  in  Matthew  to  Abraham,  the 
ancestor  of  the  Jewish  nation,  but  to  Adam,  the  progenitor 
of  the  human  race,  shows  a  wider  horizon  than  that  of 
the  Jewish  nation,  is  yet,  of  course,  derived  from  Jewish 
sources,  partly  biblical,  partly  post-biblical.  In  the  rest  of 
the  gospels,  on  the  other  hand,  the  use  of  Scripture  lan- 
guage is  much  less  frequent.  Like  Mark,  this  gospel  also 
records  the  use  of  Scripture  language  by  Jesus  and  others, 
the  passages  being  in  the  majority  of  cases  parallel  to 
those  in  Mark  or  Matthew,  but  including  also  a  number 


50  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  LUKE 

not  reported  in  the  other  gospels.  But  outside  the  first 
two  chapters  and  the  genealogical  table  there  is  but  one 
explicit  quotation  (Luke  3:4  ff.)  by  the  evangelist,  and 
this  is  parallel  to  the  one  passage  in  which  the  second 
gospel  quotes  the  Old  Testament.  There  is  also  one  pas- 
sage (23:34)  in  which  Old  Testament  language  is  used 
in  a  narrative  passage  without  reference  to  its  Old  Testa- 
ment origin  ;  this  passage  likewise  being  parallel  to  one  in 
Mark  and  Matthew.^  The  quotations  as  a  whole  show  the 
influence  of  the  Septuagint,  and  no  clear  evidence  that  the 
author  of  the  gospel  knew  Hebrew.^ 

References  to  the  political  situation  in  Palestine  are 
explicit  and  important.  Incidental  references  occur  in 
1:5;  3:19,  20;  7:2;  8:3;  13:1;  19:12  (?);  20: 
22-24;  -3  •  1-24  passim,  52.  In  all  these  cases  —  some  of 
them  paralleled  in  the  other  gospels,  others  peculiar  to 
Luke  —  the  references  are  true  to  the  situation  as  we 
know  it  from  other  sources.  There  are  also  two  passages 
peculiar  to  Luke  which  are  evidently  careful  editorial 
notes  :  2  :  1-3  :  3:1,2.  The  latter  of  these  is  an  entirely 
correct  statement  of  the  political  situation  in  Judea  in 
the  fifteenth  year  of  Tiberius;  but  there  is  some  diffi- 
culty in  combining  into  a  consistent  chronology  the  state- 
ment that  John  the  Baptist  be^an  his  ministry  in  the  fif- 
teenth year  of  Tiberius  and  the  data  yielded  respectively 
by  Luke  2:1-3  and  3  :  23. '^    The  expression  "  in  the  high- 

*  To  this  there  should  perhaps  be  added  three  passages  in  which 
Westcott  and  Hort  recognize  the  use  of  Old  Testament  language  (.23:35, 
36,  49),  but  the  resemblance  to  the  Old  Testament  is  so  slight  and 
incidental,  extending  in  two  cases  to  a  single  word  only,  that  they  afford 
little  evidence. 

'  See  Plummer,  Commentary  on  Luke,  p.  xxxv. 

"  See  Appended  Note  I,  p.  67. 


THE  AUTHOR  51 

priesthood  of  Annas  and  Caiaphas  "  (  eVl  apxiep€(o<;  "Awa 
ical  Kaid^a — observe  the  use  of  the  singular),  reflects 
not  very  distinctly,  yet  not  incorrectly,  the  peculiar  situa- 
tion of  the  time  in  respect  to  the  office  of  high  priest." 
The  other  passage,  2:1-3,  creates  more  difficulty,  and  has 
given  rise  to  prolonged  discussion.  Of  the  many  solutions 
that  have  been  proposed  none  is  altogether  satisfactory, 
in  the  sense  of  furnishing  conclusive  evidence  that  Luke's 
statement  is  wholly  accurate ;  yet  its  erroneousness  is  not 
proved,  and  it  is  at  least  possible  that  it  is  itself  an  impor- 
tant datum  for  the  determination  of  the  facts  respecting 
enrolments  in  the  Roman  empire.^  In  any  case,  it  remains 
that  these  two  passages  show  an  interest  of  the  evangelist 
in  the  relations  of  the  life  of  Jesus  to  the  affairs  of  the 
Roman  empire  at  large,  such  as  appears  in  none  of  the 
other  gospels,  and  indicate  a  writer  who  had  sought  by 
investigation  of  the  facts  to  connect  the  events  he  was 
narrating  with  the  history  of  the  land  and  the  empire, 
rather  than  one  who  with  easy  familiarity  with  the  facts 
mentioned  them  incidentally  without  efifort  or  special 
intention. 

References  to  social  life,  everyday  occupations,  and 
articles  of  common  use  are  very  frequent,  so  much  so  as 
to  constitute  a  characteristic  of  this  gospel  as  compared 
with  the  other  gospels.  Thus  the  house  is  spoken  of  in 
5:19;  11:7;  12:39;  13:25;  17:31;  22:11;  various 
household  utensils  are  mentioned  in  1:63;  5:18;  8:16; 
^^■7>33'^  15:8;  17:34;  clothing,in  9:3;  10:4;  22: 35  f . ; 
the  meals  of  the  day,  in  7:36;    11:37;    14:1,7,8;   20: 

'  See  chap,  v,  p.  99,  n.  2  ;  Lightfoot,  Biblical  Essays,  p.  163  ;  Plum- 
MER,  ad  loc. 

*  See  Appended  Note  II,  p.  68. 


52  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  LUKE 

46;  articles  of  food,  in  6:44;  9 :  13 ;  11:5,11,12;  13: 
21;  15:23;  17:35;  22:19;  24:30,  42;  beverages,  in 
1:15;  5  :  37 ;  7  :  33  :  23  :  36 ;  oil  and  ointment,  in  7  :  37, 
38,  46 ;  feasts  and  similar  social  customs,  in  7 :  44-46 ; 
14:7-10;  15  :  22-25  ;  funeral  customs,  in  7  :  12,  14:8:52; 
exigencies  of  travel,  in  9:3-5;  10:4-6,  10,  11,  34,  35; 
1 1  :  5-7.  Men  of  various  occupations  are  mentioned  :  shep- 
herds, in  2:8;  15:4;  17:7;  swineherds,  in  8  :  34 ;  15:15; 
plowmen,  in  i."/  '.y,  fishermen,  in  5:2-11 ;  corngrinders,  in 
17:35;  spinning,  in  12 :  27;  c/^.  also  14:  17;  15:17;  ser- 
vants and  their  duties,  in  12  :  35  fT.,  42  fT. ;  13  : 6-9.^  Most 
of  these  references  have  little  or  no  evidential  value  in 
respect  to  the  question  of  authorship,  yet,  taken  together, 
they  show  a  notable  conformity  to  the  conditions  of  life  in 
Palestine. 

The  Greek  of  the  gospel  is  of  three  somewhat  distinct 
types.  The  preface  is  in  excellent  idiomatic  Greek,  with 
no  suggestion  of  Hebraistic  influence.  The  infancy  sec- 
tion is  very  distinctly  and  strongly  Hebraistic  in  character. 
The  remainder  of  the  gospel  is  less  markedly  Hebraic, 
resembling  in  general  the  gospels  of  Mark  and  Matthew, 
yet  having  some  peculiarities  of  its  own.^" 

*  See  Article  by  Shailer  Mathews,  in  Biblical  World.  June,  1895, 
pp.  450  fF.,  of  which  free  use  has  been  made  in  this  list. 

'"  Especially  noteworthy  are  the  use  of  the  optative  with  Hv  (a 
classical  idiom  found  in  the  New  Testament  only  in  Luke  and  Acts), 
the  frequent  employment  of  iv  with  the  infinitive  (a  construction  very 
common  in  the  Septuagint,  and  found  in  all  parts  of  Luke  except  the 
preface,  and  occurring  six  times  as  often  as  in  Matthew  and  Mark 
together),  the  frequent  occurrence  of  iydvero  54  and  Kai  iy^vero  (about 
four  times  as  often  as  in  Matthew  and  Mark  together),  and  prevailingly 
with  the  Hebraistic  construction  following  (indicative  alone,  or  Kal  with 
an  indicative  :    in   Acts,  on  the  other  hand,  usually   with  the  infinitive 


THE  AUTHOR  53 

All  these  facts,  considered  together,  point  to  the  con- 
clusion that  the  author  certainly  employed  Jewish  sources, 
and  was  familiar  with  Jewish  affairs,  but  may  not  have 
been  himself  a  Jew.  The  story  of  the  infancy  is  of  a 
strongly  Jewish  cast ;  the  sources  of  the  remainder  of 
the  book  are  quite  similar  in  this  respect  to  the  gospel  of 
Mark,  and  are  presumably  of  Jewish  origin,  though  not  so 
pronouncedly  Jewish  in  character  as  the  infancy  story  or 
as  the  gospel  of  Matthew.  The  references  to  affairs  of  the 
Roman  empire,  and  the  extension  of  the  genealogical 
table,  are  suggestive  of  a  man  who  was  not  a  Jew,  or  who 
was  at  least  somewhat  decidedly  cosmopolitan  in  his  feel- 
ing. He  shows  too  much  sympathy  with  the  Jewish  point 
of  view  to  have  been  a  gentile  who  repudiated  the  Old 
Testament  religion,  and  too  broad  an  outlook  to  have  been 
a  Jew  who  held  a  narrow  Jewish  view  of  the  world  and 
God's  relation  to  it.  He  might  be  a  Jew  of  cosmopolitan 
feeling,  or  a  gentile  proselyte  to  Judaism. 

2.  His  religious  position. —  Of  this  there  is  no  room 
for  doubt.  Like  the  writers  of  the  other  gospels,  the  third 
evangelist  is  a  Christian  in  his  belief.  The  subject  of  his 
book  is  Jesus  Christ,  the  Son  of  God;  and  the  things 
"which  have  been  fulfilled  among  us,"  and  concerning 
which  he  desires  his  readers  to  "know  the  certainty,"  are 
the  deeds  and  teachings  of  Jesus.  As  respects  the  par- 
ticular type  of  Christianity  which  he  represented,  it  is 
evident  that  his  sympathies  would  be  with  the  Pauline 
rather  than  with  the  Judaistic  party.     Evidence  of  this 

following).  See  J.  H.  Moulton,  Expositor,  January,  1904,  p.  74.  Thus 
the  peculiarities  of  Luke's  style  are  in  part  Hebraistic,  in  part  distinctly 
non-Hebraistic.  See  a  detailed  discussion  of  Luke's  style  in  Plummer's 
Commentary,  pp.  li  ff.  and  45.     Hawkins,  Horae  Synopticae,  pp.  140-61. 


54  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  LUKE 

will  a])pear  in  connection  with  the  consideration  of  the 
purpose  of  the  book. 

3.  Evidence  concerning  the  identity  of  the  author 
from  outside  the  gospel. —  This  is  of  three  kinds: 

a)  That  which  is  derived  from  the  book  of  Acts, 
combined  with  the  evident  relation  of  the  gospel  and  the 
Acts.  That  these  two  books  are  from  the  same  author  is 
so  evident  that  it  has  been  affirmed  by  critics  of  every 
school,  and  very  rarely  questioned.^ ^  To  determine  the 
authorship  of  Acts  would  then  be  to  determine  that  of  the 
third  gospel.  The  former  problem,  however,  is  scarcely 
less  difficult  than  the  latter.  In  certain  portions  of  Acts, 
known  as  the  "  we-sections "  (16:  10-40;  20:6 — 21  :  18; 
27:1 — 28:16  or  31),  the  narrative  is  told  in  the  first 
person,  implying  that  it  is  from  the  pen  of  an  eyewitness 
of  the  events.  That  this  implication  is  in  accordance  with 
the  facts,  and  that  the  author  of  these  sections  was  in  fact 
a  companion  of  the  apostle  Paul  on  some  of  his  missionary 
journeys,  is  one  of  the  assured  results  of  historical  criti- 
cism. It  is  natural  to  suppose  that  the  author  of  these 
we-sections  is  at  the  same  time  the  author  of  the  whole 
book,  the  absence  of  the  first-person  pronoun  in  the  other 
portions  of  it  reflecting  the  fact  that  he  is  here,  in  part  at 
least,  relating  what  he  had  learned  from  others.  There 
is,  moreover,  considerable  evidence  for  this  opinion  in  the 
prevalence  throughout  the  book  of  certain  peculiarities  of 
style,  as  well  as  in  the  very  fact  of  the  retention  of  the 

"  See,  for  example,  Plummer,  Commentary  on  Luke,  p.  xi ;  Head- 
lam,  art.  "Acts"  in  Hastings,  Dictionary  of  the  Bible,  Vol.  I,  p.  29; 
ScHMiEDEL,  art.  "Acts"  in  Encyclopcedia  Biblica,  Vol.  I,  p.  48;  Stan- 
ton, in  Expositor,  May,  1893,  pp.  336-53  ;  Friedrich,  Das  Lukasevange- 
lium  and  die  Apostelgeschichte  Werke  desselben  Verfassers,  Halle,  1890. 


THE  AUTHOR  .  55 

"we"  in  these  sections  themselves.  Yet  there  is  by  no 
means  the  same  agreement  on  this  point  as  on  the  autoptic 
character  of  the  we-sections,  and  a  certain  conclusion  con- 
cerning the  authorship  of  the  gospel  can  be  drawn  from 
the  relation  of  it  to  Acts  only  when  the  Acts  problem  itself 
is  definitely  settled. ^^ 

b)  The  ancient  manuscripts  of  the  gospel  uniformly 
bear  the  title  Kara  Aovkuv,  "  According  to  Luke/'  or 
KvayyeXiov  Kara  AouKav/'  Gospel  according  to  Luke,"  or 
its  equivalent.^'* 

f)  From  the  earliest  times  at  which  ancient  writers 
mention  any  author  of  our  gospel  they  ascribe  it  to  Luke. 
The  following  are  some  of  these  testimonies : 

For  in  the  memoirs  which  I  say  were  composed  by  his  apostles 
and  those  who  followed  them,  it  is  written  that  his  sweat  fell  down 
like  drops  of  blood,  while  he  was  praying  and  saying,  "  Let  this  cup, 
if  it  be  possible,  pass  from  me."  "  (Justin  Martyr,  Dialogue  with 
Trypho,  chap.  103.) 

^^Plummer,  Commentary  on  Luke,  p.  xii,  says,  "It  is  perhaps  no 
exaggeration  to  say  that  nothing  in  biblical  criticism  is  more  certain  than 
this  statement,"  viz.,  that  the  author  of  Acts  (not  simply  of  the  "  we- 
sections  ")  was  a  companion  of  Paul.  With  this  statement  agree  also 
LiGHTFOOT,  art.  "  Acts  "  in  Smith,  Dictionary  of  the  Bible,  2d  Eng.  ed. : 
Headlam,  art.  "  Acts  "  in  Hastings,  Dictionary  of  the  Bible ;  Ramsay, 
Blass,  and  many  others.  On  the  other  hand,  McGiffert,  Apostolic  Age, 
pp.  2iy  f.,  433  f. ;  ScHMiEDEL,  art.  "  Acts "  in  Encyclopedia  Biblica, 
Vol.  I ;  Wendt,  Kommentar  iiber  die  Apostelgeschichte,  8th  ed.,  and 
JiJLiCHER,  Einleitung  in  das  Neue  Testament,  p.  268,  distinguish  between 
the  author  of  the  "  we-sections  "  and  the  author  of  the  book. 

"  See  chap,  i,  p.  8,  n.  7. 

"  Cf.  Luke  22 :  44.  The  mention  of  the  blood-like  sweat  being 
found  in  Luke  only  of  our  gospels,  the  statement  of  Justin  is  naturally 
understood  as  ascribing  the  gospel  to  an  apostle  or  one  of  the  com- 
panions of  the  apostles. 


56  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  LUKE 

Irenaeus,  naming  tlie  four  gospels  in  the  order  in 
which  they  stand  in  modern  versions,  says : 

Luke  also,  the  companion  of  Paul,  recorded  in  a  book  the  gospel 
preached  by  him.     (Adv.  Haer.,  iii,  i.) 

Thirdly,  the  gospel-book  according  to  Luke.  Luke  the  physician, 
after  the  ascension  of  Christ,  when  Paul  had  taken  him  as  it  were 
as  a  follower  zealous  of  the  right,  wrote  it  in  his  own  name,  as  is 
believed.  The  Lord,  nevertheless,  he  had  not  himself  seen  in  the 
flesh,  and  accordingly,  going  back  as  far  as  he  could  obtain  informa- 
tion, he  began  his  narrative  with  the  birth  of  John.  {The  Muratorian 
Fragment.) 

These  testimonies,  dating  from  the  middle  and  end  of 
the  second  centuiy  —  the  Muratorian  fragment  is  perhaps 
from  the  beginning  of  the  third  century  —  show  what 
was  believed  in  the  church  at  the  earliest  period  from 
which  we  have  definite  testimony.  There  is  nothing  in 
the  gospel  itself  to  contradict  this  belief,  except  as  con- 
cerns the  statement  of  Irenaeus  with  reference  to  the  rela- 
tion of  Paul  to  this  gospel.  That  Paul  exerted  some 
influence  upon  the  mind  of  the  evangelist,  and  even  upon 
the  gospel  itself,  need  not  be  questioned,^"'  but  that  Luke 
drew  his  material  to  any  considerable  extent  from  Paul 
is  excluded  alike  by  Luke's  own  preface,  in  which  he 
names  as  the  source  of  his  information  "those  who  from 
the  beginning  w'ere  eyewitnesses  and  ministers  of  the 
word" — a  phrase  which  would  not  include  Paul  —  and 
the  internal  evidence  of  the  relation  of  the  gospels  to  one 
another. 

"Could  the  common  text  of  Luke  22:  19-21  be  accepted  as  genuine, 
this  would  be  an  almost  indubitable  instance  of  dependence  either  of 
Luke  upon  Paul  (i  Cor.  11  :  23-25)  or  of  Paul  upon  Luke.  But  on  this 
passage  see  Westcott  .^nd  Hort,  New  Testament  in  Greek,  Vol.  II, 
App.,  pp.  63  f. 


THE  READERS  57 

The  Luke  to  whom  tradition  ascribed  the  gospel  is 
without  question  the  one  named  in  the  New  Testament  as 
a  companion  of  Paul,  and  referred  to  in  Philem.,  vs.  24; 
Col.  4  :  14;  2  Tim.  4:11.  The  second  of  these  passages 
describes  him  as  a  physician,  and  the  gospel  itself  yields 
some  indication  of  having  been  written  by  one  who  was 
familiar  with  medical  matters.^ ^  The  same  passage  com- 
pared with  vs.  1 1  implies  that  he  was  of  gentile  birth,  and 
with  this  agree  the  internal  indications  of  the  gospel  itself. 
(See  p.  53.)  If  he  was  the  author  of  the  " we-passages " 
of  the  Acts,  the  journeys  in  which  he  accompanied  Paul 
gave  him  ample  opportunity  to  meet  and  consult  with 
those  who  were  companions  and  ministers  of  Jesus.  If 
there  is  any  reason  to  doubt  that  he  was  in  fact  the  author 
of  our  gospel,  such  reason  is  to  be  found,  ftot  in  the  gospel, 
but  in  the  book  of  Acts.  For  our  present  purpose  it  is  of 
more  importance  to  observe  that,  whatever  the  name  or 
personality  of  the  evangelist,  he  was,  according  to  the 
evidence  of  the  gospel  itself,  substantially  such  a  man  as 
Luke ;  not  a  personal  follower  of  Jesus,  but  one  who  had 
access  to  the  testimony  of  the  eyewitnesses  of  Jesus'  life; 
a  man  of  Jewish  sympathies,  but  of  cosmopolitan  inter- 
ests; a  Christian  whose  afifiliations  were  with  the  more 
liberal  party  in  the  early  church. 

III.       THE  READERS  FOR  WHOM   THE  POOK   WAS  INTENDED 

Reference  has  already  been  made  to  the  evidence  in 
the  preface  to  the  gospel  that  it  was  written  for  Christian 
readers.  Theophilus,  to  whom  the  book  is  addressed  or 
dedicated,  was  probably  a  real  person,  but  certainly  also 

"See  HoBART,  Medical  Language  of  Luke;  Plummek,  Commentary 
on  Luke,  pp.  Ixiii  ff. 


58  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  LUKE 

the  representative  of  the  class  for  whom  especially  the 
book  was  written.  It  is  not  probable  either  that  the  book 
was  intended  solely  for  his  private  reading,  or  that  the 
other  persons  whom  the  author  had  in  mind  belonged  to 
a  distinctly  different  class  from  Theophiliis.  The  only 
question,  then,  is  whether  the  Christians  for  whom  Luke 
wrote  were  predominantly  Jews  or  gentiles.  The  name 
Theophilus,  though  suggesting  gentile  readers,  would  not 
be  decisive,  since  so  many  Hebrews  bore  Greek  names. 
But  the  content  of  the  gospel  leaves  no  room  for  doubt 
that  the  author  has  gentile  readers  specially  in  mind. 
There  is  a  notable  absence  of  Hebrew  words,  such  as 
occur  in  Mark  accompanied  by  an  explanation,  and  in 
Matthew  without  explanation.  There  are  a  few  geo- 
graphical notes  which  suggest  that  the  readers  were  not 
Palestinians  (2:4;  8:26;  19:29).  In  a  number  of 
instances  this  gospel  employs  terms  which  would  be  intel- 
ligible to  gentiles  in  place  of  Jewish  terms  used  in  parallel 
or  similar  passages  in  the  other  synoptic  gospels.'"  The 
sermon  of  Jesus  in  6  :  20-49  conspicuously  lacks  that  refer- 
ence to  the  needs  and  point  of  view  of  the  Jews  which  is 
so  distinctly  marked  in  the  parallel  discourse  in  Matt., 
chaps.  5,  6,  7.  There  are,  as  already  noted  (p.  50),  but 
two  references  by  the  evangelist  (as  distinguished  from 
Jesus  and  others  whose  words  he  records)  to  the  fulfil- 

"  See,  e.  g.,  5  :  19,  "  through  the  tiles,"  in  place  of  expressions  in 
Matthew  and  Mark  which  suggest  a  thatch  roof;  ^Trto-rdrTjj  8  :  24  (Mark 
StSdrr/caXos,  Matthew  Kvpios);  5:5;  9  :  33,  49  ;  17:13;  pa^/3e/  never  occurs 
in  Luke;  dXTjflwj  (9:27;  12:44;  21:3)  instead  of  d/xT^v  which  Luke 
uses,  but  much  less  frequently  than  Matthew;  vofiiKbs  (7:30;  10:25; 
11:45,  46,  52;  14:3)  instead  of  ypa/x/xareOs,  which  Matthew  and  Mark 
usually  employ.  (See  also  Mathews,  in  Biblical  World,  May,  1895,  pp. 
340  f. ;    Plummer,  Commentary  on  Luke,  p.  xxxiv.) 


PURPOSE  AND  POINT  OF  VIEW  59 

ment  of  Old  Testament  Scripture,  and  both  of  these  give 
evidence  of  being  derived  from  the  sources  of  the  gospeh 
This  author  alone  of  the  evangehsts  makes  mention  of  the 
Roman  emperor  in  whose  reign  the  events  recorded  took 
place  (3:1).  and  more  explicitly  than  the  others  defines 
the  political  status  of  Palestine  at  the  time.  The  familiar- 
ity with  Jewish  affairs  which  he  assumes  on  the  part  of  his 
readers,  especially  in  chaps,  i,  2,  at  first  sight  suggests 
Jewish  readers,  but  is  in  reality  sufficiently  explained  by 
the  fact  that  he  wrote  for  Christians  who  had  already 
heard  the  story  of  Jesus'  life  by  word  of  mouth  (i  :4). 
It  must,  moreover,  be  remembered,  as  the  epistles  of  Paul 
already  clearly  show,  that  even  gentile  Christians  early 
acquired  a  knowledge  of  the  Old  Testament. 

IV.       THE    PURPOSE    AND    POINT   OF   VIEW    OF    THE    GOSPEL 

In  this  matter,  as  in  respect  to  the  readers,  we  have  the 
great  advantage  of  possessing  a  statement  from  the  author 
himself.  He  wrote,  he  says,  after  careful  investigation, 
in  order  that  his  reader  might  know  the  certainty  con- 
cerning the  things  wherein  he  had  been  instructed,  -/.  c, 
that  he  might  have  accurate  knowledge  concerning  the 
events  of  Jesus'  life.  We  are  prepared,  therefore,  not  to 
find  any  such  definite  argumentative  aim  as  characterizes 
the  gospel  of  Matthew,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  to  discover 
a  somewhat  more  definite  and  conscious  historical  purpose 
than  appears  in  Mark.  Nor  are  these  expectations  dis- 
appointed in  the  book.  Though  written  chiefly  for  gen- 
tiles, there  is  as  little  evidence  of  intention  to  enter  into 
the  controversies  of  the  apostolic  age  with  reference  to  the 
relations  of  Jews  and  gentiles  in  the  kingdom  as  appears 
in  Mark.     Both  John  and  Jesus  are  intimately  associated 


6o  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  LUKE 

with  the  temple  in  their  birth,  and  the  first  event  in  which 
Jesus  is  recorded  as  talving  active  part  occurs  also  in  the 
temple.  That  Jesus  was  opposed  by  the  Pharisees  appears 
as  clearly  as  in  the  other  synoptic  gospels,  and  there  are 
not  a  few  passages  in  which  Jesus  sharply  reproves  them. 
But  most  of  the  passages  which  in  the  gospel  of  Matthew 
emphasize  the  special  opportunity  of  the  Jews,  and  dis- 
tinctly set  forth  the  rejection  of  the  kingdom  by  the  Jews, 
and  of  the  nation  by  Jesus,  are  absent  from  Luke.  Inti- 
mations of  the  universal  scope  of  the  gospel  occur,  some 
of  them  peculiar  to  this  gospel  (2:31  f. :  3:6;  4: 24-27 ; 
9:52),  but,  on  the  other  hand,  some  which  are  found  in 
the  other  gospels  {e.  g.,  Matt.  15  :  22-28:  Mark  7  :  25-30; 
Matt.  8:11)  are  lacking  in  Luke.  The  book  is  consider- 
ably longer  than  Mark,  and  shows  more  indications  of 
conscious  literary  construction  than  appear  in  Mark.  But 
of  the  influence  of  an  argumentative  aim  on  the  structure 
it  is  impossible  to  discover  any  trace.  The  author  seems 
to  have  aimed  at  an  orderly  account  of  the  life  of  Jesus,  as 
complete  as  his  sources  enabled  him  to  make  it  without 
duplication  of  material  or  the  use  of  matter  which  he 
regarded  as  untrustworthy. 

Yet  the  book  is  not,  after  all,  devoid  of  a  color  and 
character  of  its  own.  While  the  material  is  in  large  part 
the  same  that  is  found  in  Matthew  and  Mark,  and  while  it 
presents  Jesus  from  much  the  same  point  of  view  as  the 
other  synoptists,  especially  as  compared  with  the  fourth 
gospel,  yet  the  portrait  is  not  identical  with  theirs.  Luke's 
picture  of  Jesus  is  in  a  sense  less  provincial,  more  cosmo- 
politan, than  that  of  Matthew  or  that  of  Mark.  While 
Mark's  attention  is  absorbed  with  the  majestic  figure  of 
Jesus  in  his  public  career,  teaching,  working,  suffering. 


PURPOSE  AND  POINT  OF  VIEW  61 

dying,  rising  again;  while  Matthew  sees  in  him  the 
promised  Messiah,  fultiUing  Old  Testament  prophecy  and 
his  own  prediction  that,  if  his  own  nation  rejected  him, 
the  kingdom  of  God  should  be  taken  from  them  and  given 
to  the  nations,  this  gospel  presents  him  to  us  in  his  inti- 
mate, and  yet  his  universal,  relationship  to  men,  the 
mediator  between  the  one  God  and  all  men.  Divine  in 
origin,  yet  born  into  a  human  family,  and  subject  to  the 
ordinances  of  the  law  under  which  he  was  born  and  to 
parental  authority,  he  is  by  his  genealogy  (traced  back, 
not,  as  in  Matthew,  to  David  and  Abraham,  but  to  Adam, 
son  of  God)  set  forth  as  a  member  of  the  universal  human 
family,  itself  the  offspring  of  God.  A  man  who  by  con- 
stant prayer  took  hold  on  God,  while  he  devoted  his  life 
to  helping  and  saving  the  lost,  he  is  at  the  same  time  the 
friend  of  the  publican  and  the  sinner,  and  the  expression 
of  God's  love  for  a  lost  world  (see  especially  chap.  15). 
But  this  conception  of  the  mission  of  Jesus  is  naturally 
accompanied  by  an  emphasis  upon  the  intimacy  and  uni- 
versality of  men's  relations  to  one  another.  The  parables 
that  teach  the  duties  of  men  to  one  another,  intimate  not 
indistinctly  that  these  obligations  are  not  limited  by  social 
or  national  lines  (6:27  ff. ;  10:30-37;  16:19-31).  It  is 
not  so  much,  however,  the  barrier  between  Jew  and  gen- 
tile against  which  the  teaching  of  Jesus  reported  in  this 
gospel  is  directed,  as  that  which  pride  had  set  up  between 
Pharisee  and  publican,  rich  and  poor,  man  and  woman, 
Jew  and  Samaritan.  And  of  these  various  barriers  separ- 
ating men  into  classes  it  is  the  one  between  rich  and  poor 
which  more  frequently  perhaps  than  any  other  is  inveighed 
against  in  this  gospel.  The  facts  of  Jesus'  life  which 
associate  him  with  the  poor,   and  his  teachings  which 


62  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  LUKE 

express  sympathy  with  the  poor  or  point  out  the  danger 
of  riches,  are  represented,  not  in  this  gospel  alone,  but  in 
this  more  than  in  any  of  the  others.^ ^ 

I'hus,  if  we  are  to  point  out  anything  which  is  dis- 
tincti\'e  of  the  point  of  view  of  this  gospel  as  compared 
with  the  other  synoptic  gospels,  it  will  be  the  emphasis 
upon  the  two  conceptions  of  universality  and  relationship, 
applied  both  as  between  Christ,  as  representative  of  God's 
attitude,  and  men,  and  between  man  and  man.  Jesus,  as 
this  gospel  presents  him  to  as,  reveals  to  us  the  compas- 
sion of  God  for  all,  and  teaches  that  men  ought  in  humility 
and  love  to  seek  out  and  help  all  the  needy  and  the  lost, 
ignoring  all  the  artificial  barriers  which  pride  and  selfish- 
ness have  set  up. 

Yet  it  is  not  less  necessary  to  remember  that  our  gos- 
pels, especially  the  synoptic  gospels,  resemble  one  another 
in  purpose,  as  in  scope  and  content,  by  more  than  they 
differ  the  one  from  the  other.  Like  Matthew  and  ]\Iark, 
Luke  wrote  for  the  edification  of  the  church,  and  used  the 
materials  which  he  possessed.  With  less  definite  argu- 
mentative purpose,  and  probably  with  less  selection  and 
exclusion  of  material  at  his  hand  than  Matthew,  the  dis- 
tinctive character  of  his  book  may  be  due  quite  as  much 
to  the  character  of  his  sources,  or  to  unconscious  selection, 
as  to  definite  intention.  The  only  conscious  purpose 
which  we  can  with  confidence  attribute  to  the  evangelist  is 
that  which  he  has  himself  expressed  in  his  preface,  viz., 
on  the  basis  of  trustworthy  sources  and  careful  investiga- 

"  See,  e.  g.,  2:  7,  j6,  24  ;  6:  20,  21,  24,  25  ;  8:3;  9  :  58  ;  12  :  13-34  ; 
14:12-14;  16:14,  15,  19-31;  18:22-30;  19:8;  cf.  Mathews,  Social 
Teaching  of  Jesus,  pp.  141  f. ;  Plummer,  Commentary  on  Luke,  p.  xxv, 
especially  as  against  an  overemphasis  on  this  element  of  the  third  gospel. 


PLAN  OF  THE  GOSPEL  63 

tion  to  give  an  orderly  and  historically  true  narrative  of 
the  events  connected  with  the  life  of  Jesus. 

V.       THE  PLAN   OF   THE  GOSPEL 

The  book  is  simple  in  structure,  following  the  main 
outlines  which  appear  also  in  Mark,  but  prefixing  the  sec- 
tions on  the  infancy  and  youth,  and  greatly  enlarging  the 
narrative  of  the  journey  to  Jerusalem.  The  following 
analysis  is  an  attempt  to  exhibit  the  author's  plan;  but 
little  significance,  however,  can  be  attached  to  the  divi- 
sions of  the  Galilean  ministry  : 

ANALYSIS  OF  THE  GOSPEL  OF  LUKE 

I.    Preface.  1:1-4 
II.    Birth,  Childhood,  and  Youth  of  John  the  Bap- 
tist AND  OF  Jesus.                                                         i  :  5 — 2  :  52 

1.  The  birth  of  John  the  Baptist  promised.  i :  5-25 

2.  Annunciation  of  the  birth  of  Jesus.  1 :  26-38 

3.  Mary's  visit  to  Elizabeth.  i :  39-56 

4.  Birth  and  youth  of  John.  i :  57-80 

5.  The  birth  of  Jesus.  2  :  1-7 

6.  The  angels  and  the  shepherds.  2  :  8-20 

7.  The  circumcision  of  Jesus.  2:21 

8.  The  presentation  in  the  temple.  2 :  22-39 

9.  Childhood  and  youth  of  Jesus  in  Nazareth.  2 :  40-52 

III.  Preparation  for  Christ's  Public  Work.  3:  i — 4:  13 

1.  The  early  ministry  of  John  the  Baptist.  3:  1-20 

2.  The  baptism  of  Jesus.  3:21,22 

3.  Genealogy  of  Jesus.  3  '■  23-38 

4.  The  temptation  of  Jesus  in  the  wilderness.  4:  1-13 

IV.  The  Galilean  Ministry.  4^14 — 9^50 
I.    Early  events  at  Nazareth  and  Capernaum.  4:  14-44 

o)  Beginning  of  the  ministry  in  Galilee.  4:  14,  I5 

b)  The  rejection  at  Nazareth.  4:  16-30 

c)  A  sabbath  at  Capernaum.  4:31-41 

d)  Leaves  Capernaum  and  preaches  in  Galilee.  4:42-44 


64  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  LUKE 

2.  From  the  call  of  the  Four  to  the  choosing  of 

the  Twelve.  5:  i — 6:  il 

a)  Call  of  the  Four.  5:1-11 

b)  A  leper  healed.  5 :  12-16 

c)  A  paralytic  healed.  5:  17-26 
(/)  The  call  of  Levi  and  the  feast  in  his  house.  5  :  27-32 
c)  Question  about  fasting.  5  :  33-39 
/)  Plucking  grain  on  the  sabbath.  6:  1-5 
g)  A  withered  hand  healed  on  the  sabbath.  6:  6-11 

3.  From  the  choosing  of  the  Twelve  to  the  send- 
ing of  them  out.  6 :  12 — 8 :  56 

a)  Choosing  of  the  Twelve.  6:12-16 

b)  Sermon  on  the  Mountain.  6:  17-49 

c)  The  centurion's  servant  healed.  7 :  i-io 

d)  Widow's  son  at  Nain.  7:  11-17 

e)  Message  from  John  the  Baptist.  7:18-35 

f)  Jesus  anointed  in  the  house  of  Simon  the 
Pharisee.  7 :  36-50 

g)  Tour  in  Galilee  continued.  8:  1-3 
h)  Teaching  in  parables.  8:4-18 
i)  Natural  and  spiritual  kinsmen.  8:  19-21 
;)  Stilling  of  the  tempest.  8 :  22-25 
k)  The  Gerasene  demoniac.  8:26-39 
/)  The  daughter  of  Jairus  raised  to  life.  8:  40-56 

4.  From  the  sending  out  of  the  Twelve  to  the 
departure  from  Galilee.  9 :  1-50 

a)  Sending  out  of  the  Twelve.  9:  1-9 

b)  Feeding  of  the  five  thousand.  9:  10-17 

c)  Peter's   confession   and   Christ's   prediction 

of  his  death  and  resurrection.  9:  18-27 

d)  The  transfiguration.  9:28-36 

e)  The  demoniac  boy.  9:37-42 
/)  Jesus  again  predicts   his  death  and   resur- 
rection. 9 :  43-45 

g)  The  ambition  and  jealousy  of  the  disciples 

reproved.  9 :  46-50 


PLAN  OF  THE  GOSPEL 


65 


V.   The  Journey  to  Jerusalem  through   Samaria 
(and  Perea).  c 

1.  The  final  departure  from  Galilee. 

2.  Answers  to  three  disciples. 

3.  Mission  of  the  Seventy. 

4.  Parable  of  the  good  Samaritan. 

5.  In  the  house  of  Martha  and  Mary. 

6.  Teaching  about  prayer. 

7.  Casting  out  demons. 

8.  The  sign  of  Jonah ;   the  lamp  of  the  body. 

9.  Woes  against  the  Pharisees  uttered  at  a  Phari- 
see's table. 

ID.  Warnings  against  hypocrisy  and  covetousness ; 
injunctions  to  be  watchful. 

11.  The    Galileans    slain    by    Pilate:     Repentance 
enjoined. 

12.  The  woman  healed  on  a  sabbath. 

13.  Are  there  few  that  be  saved? 

14.  Reply  to  the  warning  against  Herod. 

15.  Teachings  at  a  Pharisee's  table. 

16.  On  counting  the  cost. 

17.  Three  parables  of  grace. 

18.  Two  parables  of  warning. 

19.  Concerning  offenses,  forgiveness,  and  faith. 

20.  The  ten  lepers. 

21.  The  coming  of  the  kingdom.  17 

22.  The  Pharisee  and  the  publican. 

23.  Christ  blessing  little  children. 

24.  The  rich  young  ruler. 

25.  Jesus  predicts  his  crucifixion. 

26.  The  blind  man  near  Jericho. 

27.  Visit  to  Zaccheus. 

28.  The  parable  of  the  minse. 

VL    Passion  Week.  19: 

1.  The  triumphal  entry. 

2.  The  cleansing  of  the  temple. 

3.  Conflict  with  the  Jewish  leaders.  19: 


51—19:28 

9:51-56 

9 :  57-62 

10: 1-24 

10 :  25-37 

10 :  38-42 

11:  1-13 

11: 14-28 

1 1 :  29-36 

11:37-54 
chap.  12 

13:  1-9 

13 :  10-21 

13 :  22-30 

13:31-35 

14:  1-24 

14 :  25-35 

chap.  15 

chap.  16 

17 :  i-io 

17:  11-19 

20—18 :  8 

18:  9-14 

15-17 

18-30 

31-34 

35-43 

I-IO 

19:  11-28 

29—23 :  56 
19 :  29-44 

19 :  45,  46 
47—20 :  47 


18: 
18: 
18: 
18: 
19: 


66  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  LUKE 

4.  Commendation  of  the  widow's  gift.  21 :  1-4 

5.  Discourse  concerning  the  destruction  of  Jeru- 
salem. 21 :  5-38 

6.  The   plot   of   the  Jews   and   the   treachery    of 

Judas.  22 :  1-6 

7.  The  last  supper.  22  :  7-23 

8.  Discourse  to  the  disciples.  22  :  24-38 

9.  The  agony  in  Gethsemane.  22  :  39-46 

10.  The  arrest.                                                 '  22 :  47-54 

11.  Peter's  denials.  22:55-62 

12.  The  trial  —  Jesus  before  the  Jewish  authorities.  22:63-71 

13.  The  trial  before  Pilate.  23  :  1-25 

14.  The  crucifixion  and  death.  23 :  26-49 

15.  The  burial.  23:50-56 
VII.    From  the  Resurrection  to  the  Ascension.  chap.  24 

1.  The  empty  tomb.  24:  1-12 

2.  The   appearance   to   the   two   on   the   road   to 
Emmaus.  24:  13-35 

3.  The  appearance  to  the  eleven  at  Jerusalem.  24:36-49 

4.  The  ascension.  24 :  50-53 


APPENDED  NOTE  I 

THE  FIFTEENTH  YEAR  OF  TIBERIUS 
In  Luke  3:1  we  are  told  that  John  the  Baptist  began  his  min- 
istry in  the  fifteenth  year  of  Tiberius.  In  3 :  23  the  evangeHst  speaks 
of  Jesus  as  being  about  thirty  years  old.  The  latter  statement  prob- 
ably refers  to  the  time  when  Jesus  began  his  public  ministry,  and  this 
event,  it  is  evidently  implied,  occurred  not  many  months  after  the 
beginning  of  John  the  Baptist's  ministry  already  dated  as  in  the 
fifteenth  year  of  Tiberius.  Reckoning  the  reign  of  Tiberius,  in  the 
usual  way,  from  the  death  of  Augustus  in  August  of  767  A.  U.  C. 
^  14  A.  D.,  his  fifteenth  year  would  begin  in  September,  27,  January, 
28,  April,  28,  or  August,  28,  according  to  the  method  of  reckoning 
which  Luke  employed  (see  Ramsay,  IVas  Christ  Born  at  Bethlehem? 
p.  221),  and  the  beginning  of  the  ministry  of  John  would  fall  in  the 
year  28,  possibly  at  the  end  of  27.  If  some  months  later,  say  in  the 
middle  of  the  year  28,  Jesus  began  to  teach,  being  then  about  thirty 
years  of  age,  his  birth  would  fall  about  3  B.  C.  From  Matt.,  chap.  2, 
on  the  other  hand,  we  learn  that  the  birth  of  Jesus  preceded  the 
death  of  Herod  (cf.  also  Luke  1:5),  and  since  Herod  died  in  March, 
4  B.  C,  the  birth  of  Jesus  would  on  this  basis  fall  in  5  B.  C,  or,  at 
the  latest,  in  the  beginning  of  4  B.  C.  The  gap  between  this  result 
and  that  reached  on  the  basis  of  Luke  3 :  i  and  3 :  23  may  be  bridged 
over  if  "  about  thirty  years  "  in  3 :  23  may  in  fact  cover  thirty-one  or 
thirty-two  years,  and  so  4  or  5  B.  C.  be  substituted  for  3  B.  C.  But 
Luke  himself  furnishes  a  most  serious  difficulty  by  his  statement  in 
2:  3,  which  seems  to  assign  the  birth  of  Jesus  to  a  year  not  later  than 
7  B.  C.  See  the  next  note.  The  gap  of  four  years  or  more  thus 
created  between  the  prima  facie  result  from  3 :  i  and  3 :  23,  and  that 
derived  from  2:3,  is  rather  long  to  be  covered  by  "  about "  of  3 :  23. 
In  view  of  this  difficulty,  appeal  has  been  made  to  the  possibility 
of  a  different  reckoning  of  the  years  of  Tiberius.  About  the  end  of 
764  A.  U.  C.  =  II  A.  D.  Tiberius  began,  by  decree  of  the  senate,  to 
exercise  in  the  provinces  authority  equal  to  that  of  the  emperor. 
(Velleius    Paterculus,    II,    121,    "Et    [cum]    senatus    populusque 

67 


68  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  LUKE 

Romanus,  postulante  patre,  ut  aequum  ei  jus  in  omnibus  provinciis 
exercitibusque  esset  decreto  complexus  esset  ....")  It  has  been 
suggested  that  Luke,  writing  in  the  provinces  where  Tiberius  exer- 
cised this  authority,  might  have  reckoned  his  years  from  the  begin- 
ning of  its  exercise  in  ii  or  12  A.  D.  No  conclusive  proof  of  such 
a  reckoning  has  been  brought  forward ;  for  the  coin  of  Antioch  on 
which  Wieseler  reHed  is  not  now  regarded  as  genuine,  and  other 
coins  of  Antioch  reckon  the  years  of  Tiberius  from  the  death  of 
Augustus.  But  it  is  known  that  there  was  considerable  variety  in  the 
methods  of  reckoning  the  years  of  the  emperors,  and  it  seems  at 
least  possible  that  Luke  reckoned  the  years  of  Tiberius  from  11  or  12 
instead  of  14  A.  D.  This  is  all  the  more  possible  in  view  of  the  fact, 
to  which  Ramsay  calls  attention,  that  the  years  of  Titus,  in  or  soon 
after  whose  reign  Luke  probably  wrote,  were  m  fact  reckoned  from 
his  coregency  with  Vespasian.  According  to  his  reckoning,  the 
fifteenth  year  of  Tiberius  would  begin  in  25  A.  D.  If,  then,  in  25  or 
26  John  began  to  preach,  and  if  Jesus  began  his  work  a  few  months 
later,  being  then  about  thirty  years  old,  he  was  born  about  6-4  B.  C, 
a  result  in  entire  harmony  with  the  data  given  by  Matthew.  For  its 
lelation  to  Luke  2 :  3  compare  the  next  note. 

Wieseler,  Chronological  Synopsis  of  the  Four  Gospels,  pp. 
^7^-73  >  Wieseler,  Beitriige  cur  WUrdigung  der  Evangelien,  pp. 
190  ff.;  WooLSEY,  Bibliotlieca  Sacra,  April,  1870,  pp.  332-36; 
Andrews,  Life  of  Our  Lord,  pp.  22-29;  Turner,  in  Hastings,  Dic- 
tionary of  the  Bible.,  Vol.  L  P-  405;  Plummer,  Commentary  on 
Luke,  p.  82;  Ramsay,  Was  Christ  Born  at  Bethlehem?  pp.  199  ff.; 
VON  SoDEN,  in  Encyclopedia  Biblica,  Vol.  L  col.  804. 

APPENDED  NOTE  II 
THE  ENROLMENT  IN  THE  GOVERNORSHIP  OF  QUIRINIUS 

The  questions  concerning  the  statement  in  Luke  2:  1-5  are  five: 
I.  Did  Augustus  order  a  census  of  the  empire?  The  probabilities 
respecting  the  correctness  of  the  statement  of  Luke  to  this  effect  have 
been  set  in  an  entirely  new  light  by  the  evidence  of  papyri  recently 
discovered  in  Egypt.  P>om  these  it  is  entirely  clear  that  from  8  B.  C. 
to  202  A.  D.  the  Roman  census,  usually  at  least  disconnected  from  the 
listing  of  property  for  taxation,  was  taken  in  Egypt  at  intervals  of 


APPENDED  NOTES  69 

fourteen  years.  The  fourteen-year  cycle  can  be  traced  back  to  the 
census  of  9-8  B  C,  and  the  evidence  renders  it  probable  that,  though 
there  were  census  enrolments  in  a  much  earlier  time,  the  fourteen- 
year  cycle  originated  with  Augustus.  Luke's  statement  that  the 
census  covered  the  whole  world,  that  is,  the  Roman  empire,  is  not 
directly  established  by  the  papyri,  but  neither  is  it  disproved  by  them. 
Augustus  is  known  to  have  instituted  a  valuation  of  property 
throughout  the  provinces,  but  of  a  general  census  we  have  no  direct 
evidence  other  than  the  statement  of  Luke.  Whether  this  census  was 
in  Palestine  accompanied  by  a  listing  of  property  for  taxation,  or  was, 
like  those  in  Egypt,  separated  from  such  listing,  is  also  a  matter  not 
made  clear  by  the  evidence.  See  Kenyon,  Classical  Review,  1895, 
p.  no;  Ramsay,  Was  Christ  Born  at  Bethlehem?  chaps,  vii,  viii; 
but  especially  Grenfell  and  Hunt,  Oxyrhynchus  Papyri,  Part  I 
(London,  1899),  pp.  207-14. 

2.  Would  the  kingdom  of  Herod  have  been  included  in  such  an 
order,  supposing  it  to  have  been  issued?  There  are  several  reasons 
to  believe  that  this  would  have  been  the  case.  The  kingdom  of 
Herod  was  by  no  means  an  independent  state,  but  differed  from  a 
Roman  province  more  in  name  and  appearance  than  in  fact.  Herod 
belonged  to  the  large  class  of  reges  socii.  He  received  his  authority 
by  the  consent  of  the  Romans  (Jos.,  Antiq.,  xiv,  13,  i;  xiv,  14,  4). 
His  transmission  of  it  to  his  sons  and  their  retention  of  it  were  sub- 
ject to  the  approval  of  the  emperor  (Jos.,  Antiq.,  xvii,  8,  i ;  xvii,  11, 
4;  xvii,  13,  2;  xviii,  7,  2).  He  paid  tribute  to  Rome  (Appian, 
De  bell,  civil,  v,  75)  and  his  sons,  if  they  did  not  themselves  pay 
tribute,  were  at  least  obliged  to  defer  to  Rome  in  the  matter  of  the 
taxes  which  they  collected  (Jos.,  Antiq.,  xvii,  11,  4;  cf.  also  xix,  8,  2; 
XV,  4,  4 ;  Appian,  De  reb.  Syr.,  50) .  A  Roman  legion  guarded  Jeru- 
salem in  the  beginning  of  Herod's  reign  (Jos.,  Antiq.,  xv,  3,  7). 
Herod  was  not  allowed  to  make  war  without  the  consent  of  the 
emperor  or  of  his  representatives  (Jos.,  Antiq.,  xvi,  9,  3;  xvi,  10,  8). 
He  could  not  execute  his  own  sentence  of  death  against  his  sons 
without  the  consent  of  the  emperor  (Jos.,  Antiq.,  xvi,  11,  i;  xvii,  5, 
8).  His  subjects  were  required  to  take  the  oath  of  allegiance  to 
Rome,  and  for  refusing  to  do  so  six  thousand  Pharisees  were  fined 
(Jos.,  Antiq.,  xvii,  2,  4;  cf.  xviii,  5,  3).  The  statement  of  Marquardt 
(Romische  Staatsvertcaltung,  Vol.  I,  p.  408)   that  "  Herod  is  to  be 


70  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  LUKE 

looked  upon  as  a  procurator  with  the  title  of  king "  seems  to  be- 
strictly  correct. 

It  has  been  further  pointed  out  and  urged  by  Ramsay,  as  an 
additional  reason  for  supposing  that  Herod's  kingdom  would  be 
included  in  a  general  plan  of  enrolment  of  the  empire,  that  in  the 
latter  part  of  his  life  Herod  fell  into  disfavor  with  Augustus  (Jos., 
Antiq.,  xvi,  9,  3).  But  Josephus  also  relates  that  Herod  was  after 
no  long  time  restored  to  favor  with  Augustus  {Antiq.,  xvi,  10,  9, 
and  II,  i).  Unless,  therefore,  this  restoration  was  but  partial,  or  the 
order  of  enrolment  was  given  while  Herod  was  in  disfavor,  it  would 
seem  to  have  no  special  relation  to  the  census.  The  more  general  facts, 
however,  go  far  toward  removing  any  improbability  in  the  assertion 
of  Luke  that  the  enrolment  included  Judea.  It  is  not  necessary  to 
suppose  that  the  census  was  carried  out  simultaneously  in  all  parts 
of  the  empire,  or  that  in  practice  it  covered  absolutely  every  part  of  it. 

3.  Would  such  a  census  have  been  conducted  as  Luke  implies 
that  the  one  of  which  he  speaks  was  conducted,  each  family  going  to 
its  ancestral  city?  What  interest  had  the  Roman  authorities  in 
Jewish  tribal  lines  and  family  connections?  If  the  census  was  con- 
ducted by  imperial  officers,  it  "probably  would  not  have  been  made 
after  this  fashion.  The  census  of  6  or  7  A.  D.  (Acts  5:37)  was 
conducted  by  Roman  officers  in  Roman  fashion,  and  caused  great 
disturbance  (Jos.,  Antiq.,  xviii,  i,  i).  But  if  the  enumeration  was 
made  by  Herod  at  the  request  or  command  of  Augustus,  it  might  be, 
probably  would  be,  conformed  as  nearly  as  possible  to  Jewish  ideas 
{cf.  Ramsay,  pp.  185  f.,  and  Schurer,  Geschichte  des  jiidischen 
Volkes,  3d  ed.,  Vol.  I,  pp.  396  ft'.).  Luke  does  not  say  that  the 
enumeration  was  made  by  the  governor  of  Syria ;  he  merely  dates  it 
by  the  term  of  office  of  Quirinius. 

But  it  is  also  possible,  as  suggested  by  Grenfell  and  Hunt 
{op.  cit.,  p.  211),  that  "his  own  city"  in  Luke  2:3  means,  not  his 
ancestral  city,  but  the  city  of  his  permanent  residence.  In  this  case 
the  implication  of  the  statement  would  be  that  Bethlehem  was  the 
real  home  of  the  family,  and  that,  whatever  the  occasion  or  length 
of  the  stay  in  Nazareth,  it  was  the  intention  of  Joseph  and  Mary  to 
make  Bethlehem  their  future  home.  This  would,  of  course,  corre- 
spond with  the  implication  of  Matthew's  narrative  (Matt.  2:22,  23), 
and  the  statement  of  fact  in  Luke  2:  3  may  well  be  correct,  even  if  the 


APPENDED  NOTES  ji 

reason  assigned  for  the  journey  in  Luke  2 : 4  reflects  a  misapprehen- 
sion on  his  part,  or  refers  to  the  ground  of  Joseph's  preference  for 
taking  up  or  resuming  residence  in  Bethlehem  rather  than  to  a 
requirement  imposed  by  the  rules  of  the  census. 

4.  Can  the  census  referred  to  by  Luke  and  supported  by  the 
evidence  of  Egyptian  papyri  have  fallen  in  the  year  of  Jesus'  birth  as 
established  by  other  evidence?  The  only  census  year  that  can  be 
considered  is  that  which,  in  accordance  with  the  fourteen-year  cycle, 
fell  in  9-8  B.  C.  The  next  succeeding  census,  6-7  A.  D.  (referred  to 
in  Acts  5:37  and  Jos.,  Antiq.,  xviii,  i,  i),  is  out  of  the  question, 
being  wholly  irreconcilable  with  the  other  data  (see  the  preceding 
note).  But  is  the  census  of  9-8  B.  C.  a  possibility?  The  other  data, 
as  shown  in  the  preceding  note,  place  the  date  of  the  birth  of  Jesus 
somewhere  between  6  and  3  B.  C.  Can  the  gap  between  this  result 
and  9-8  B.  C.  be  bridged?  Ramsay  has  endeavored  to  show  that  a 
census  ordered  for  9-8  B.  C.  might,  not  improbably,  be  actually  taken 
in  the  year  6  B.  C.  {Was  Christ  Born  at  Bethlehem.'^  pp.  130  ff.,  174  ff.). 
The  evidence  to  which  he  appeals  does,  indeed,  show  that  the  returns 
made  by  the  householders  to  the  officer  conducting  the  enumeration 
were  sometimes  received  by  the  officers  in  a  year  following  that  to 
which  they  referred,  this  latter  being  the  census  year  proper.  He  has 
also  cited  an  example  of  delay  in  a  similar  matter  in  the  province  of 
Galatia  during  the  years  6-3  B.  C,  in  which  an  interval  of  about  two 
years  elapsed  between  the  decree  that  the  inhabitants  of  Paphlagonia 
should  take  the  oath  of  allegiance  to  Augustus  (in  consequence  of  the 
incorporation  of  their  country  in  the  province  of  Galatia  following 
the  death  of  the  king  of  Paphlagonia)  and  the  actual  administration 
of  the  oath  (Expositor,  1901,  Vol.  IV,  pp.  ^21-23).  Grenfell  and 
Hunt,  however,  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  instances  of  a 
year's  interval  between  the  date  to  which  the  returns  referred  and  the 
presentation  of  them  to  the  officers  pertain  to  a  later  period,  and  that 
the  indications  do  not  favor  the  supposition  that  such  an  interval  was 
usual  as  early  as  the  end  of  the  first  century  B.  C.  And  they  question 
whether,  with  all  reasonable  allowance  for  delay  in  the  taking  of  the 
census,  from  whatever  cause,  it  can  be  supposed  to  have  taken  place 
later  than  7  B.  C.  Between  this  result  and  Matthew's  statement 
that  Jesus  was  born  before  Herod  died  there  is,  of  course,  no  con- 
flict.    With  Luke's  own  statements  in  3 :  i  and  3 :  23  this  result  can 


72  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  LUKE 

be  liarmonized  only  by  supposing  tbat  when  Jesus  was,  as  Luke  says, 
■■  about  thirty  years  old,"  he  was  in  fact  thirty-two,  or,  if  the  years  of 
Tiberius  were  reckoned  from  the  death  of  Augustus,  thirty-four.  Of 
these  suppositions  the  former,  at  least,  is  not  improbable. 

5.  But  if  the  census  referred  to  by  Luke  is  that  of  9-8  B.  C,  and 
if  this  census  was  actually  taken  in  7  B.  C,  can  Quirinius  have  been 
governor  of  Syria  at  that  time?  The  only  governorship  of  Quirinius 
over  Syria  of  which  we  have  direct  evidence,  outside  this  statement 
of  Luke,  is  that  which  began  in  6  A.  D.  (Jos.,  Antiq.,  xviii,  2,  i). 
But  that  he  was  governor  of  Syria  also  at  some  previous  time,  and  as 
such  conquered  the  Homonadenses,  is  established  by  indirect  evidence 
which  is  accepted  as  convincing  by  the  best  historians  (AIommsen, 
Res  Gestae  divi  Augusti,  pp.  172  ff. ;  Zumpt,  Das  Gcburtsjahr  Christi, 
pp.  43-62;  ScHURER,  Jewish  People,  Div.  I,  Vol.  I,  pp.  351-56;  3d 
German  ed.,  Vol.  I,  pp.  322-24;  Ramsay,  Was  Christ  Born  at  Bethle- 
hem i'  chap,  xi,  and  other  authorities  there  given). 

Respecting  the  date  of  this  earlier  governorship  there  is  differ- 
ence of  opinion.  Mommsen,  Zumpt,  Schiirer,  and  others  place  it  in 
^-2  B.  C.  In  this  case  it  would  have  begun  after  Herod's  death 
(March,  4  B.  C).  Zahn,  on  the  basis  of  a  criticism  and  amendment 
of  the  statements  of  Josephus,  holds  that  Quirinius  was  governor  of 
Syria  but  once,  viz.,  in  4-3  B.  C.  (see  Zahn,  in  Neue  kirchliche  Zeit- 
schrift,  1893,  PP-  633-54,  and  criticism  of  Zahn's  view  in  Schurer, 
Geschichte  des  jUdischen  Volkes,  3d  ed..  Vol.  I,  pp.  541  ff.).  In  this 
case  the  governorship  of  Quirinius  would  coincide  in  part  with  the 
reign  of  Herod.  But,  aside  from  the  fact  of  the  doubtful  character  of 
Zahn's  argument,  which  has  not  gained  the  assent  of  other  scholars, 
it  is  to  be  observed  that  Luke  does  not  say  that  the  events  which  he 
records  took  place  while  Quirinius  was  governor  of  Syria,  but  that 
they  occurred  in  the  course  of  an  enrolment,  which  enrolment  was 
enrolment  first,  or  the  first  held  when  Quirinius  was  governor.  He 
seems  distinctly  to  have  in  mind  the  well-known  enrolment  under 
Quirinius  (Acts  5:37)  and  to  date  this  as  a  previous  one  —  or  the 
first  of  a  series ;  cf.  the  evidence  in  i  above  that  the  census  of 
9-8  B.  C.  was  the  first  of  the  series  established  on  a  fourteen-year 
cycle  —  also  occurring  while  Quirinius  was  governor.  The  conditions 
of  his  statement  are  met  if  the  enrolment  was  begun  by  Herod  during 
the  governorship  of  a  predecessor  of  Quirinius  and  completed  in  the 


APPENDED  NOTES  73 

term  of  office  of  Quirinius.  Ramsay  has  endeavored  to  establish  the 
probability  that  the  campaign  in  which,  as  governor  (legatus)  of 
Syria,  Quirinius  subdued  the  Homonadenses  fell  in  the  year  6  B.  C, 
including  also  the  preceding  or  the  following  year.  We  know,  indeed, 
that  Quinctilius  Varus  was  governor  of  Syria  in  6-4  B.  C.  But 
Ramsay  points  to  other  instances  in  which,  in  addition  to  the  regu- 
lar proconsul  or  propraetor,  a  special  lieutenant  was  appointed  to  have 
charge  of  the  military  operations  and  foreign  policy  of  a  province. 
The  necessity  of  subduing  the  Homonadenses  and  the  inexperience  of 
Varus  in  military  affairs  would  give  occasion  to  such  an  arrangement 
at  this  time.  Both  officers  would  bear  in  Greek  the  title  ijyefitiv  which 
Luke  applies  to  Quirinius. 

Can  it  then  be  said  that  the  data  coincide  in  the  assignment  of 
the  governorship  of  Quirinius  and  the  enrolment  recorded  by  Luke 
to  the  years  7-6  B.  C.  ?  The  facts  from  which  Ramsay  argues  seem  to 
show  that  Quirinius  may  possibly  have  been  legatus  in  the  years 
named,  being  charged  with  a  special  military  task  while  another  was 
governor  in  general  charge  of  the  province.  Luke's  statement  is  not 
then  clearly  disproved  by  the  other  evidence,  and  may  even  furnish 
an  important  additional  datum.  But  it  must  be  admitted  that  Ram- 
say's argument  involves  conjectures  and  improbable  assumptions,  and 
does  not  go  beyond  showing  that  his  thesis  is  a  somewhat  improbable 
possibility.  Such  a  solution  cannot  be  regarded  as  finally  satisfactory. 
The  suspicion  remains  that  there  is  some  error  or  incompleteness  in 
the  data. 

But  may  the  error  lie  in  the  substitution  of  one  proper  name  for 
another?  The  statement  of  Tertullian  (adv.  Marc,  iv,  19)  which 
connects  the  birth  of  Jesus  with  a  census  held  by  Sentius  Saturninus, 
governor  of  Syria  9-7  B.  C,  has  usually  been  set  aside  because  of  its 
conflict  with  the  statement  of  Luke.  But  the  very  fact  that  it  is  not 
derived  from  the  New  Testament  suggests  that  it  perhaps  rested  on 
independent  evidence;  and  when  we  find  the  other  data  given  by 
Luke  pressing  the  census  back  into  the  very  years  of  the  governorship 
of  Saturninus,  it  is  obvious  to  inquire  whether  Luke  has  not  con- 
fused the  names  of  Saturninus  and  Quirinius.  Let  it  be  noted  that 
there  were  two  enrolments,  one  falling  in  6-7  A.  D.  and  one  about 
9-8  B.  C,  both  apparently  known  to  Luke;  that  there  were  two 
governorships  of  Quirinius ;   that  the  second  of  these  enrolments  fell 


74  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  LUKE 

in  the  second  governorship  of  Quirinius ;  and,  finally,  that  the  names 
Quirinius  and  Saturninus  are  at  least  slightly  alike.  Is  it  not  pos- 
sible that,  associating  the  two  governorships  of  Quirinius  and  the 
two  enrolments,  one  of  them  under  Quirinius,  he  may  have  fallen 
into  the  error  of  two  enrolments,  each  in  a  governorship  of 
Quirinius?  If  so,  the  mistake  is  in  the  name  of  Quirinius,  not  in 
the  fact  or  date  of  the  enrolment.  {Cf.  Grenfell  and  Hunt,  op. 
cit. ) 

It  must  be  evident  that  confident  decision  of  the  question  here 
raised  would  be  rash.  Important  new  data  have  come  to  light  within 
the  last  four  or  five  years.  Still  other  facts  may  yet  be  discovered 
and  may  set  the  whole  matter  in  still  clearer  light.  At  present  it  is 
necessary  to  rest  in  the  conclusion  that,  while  the  chronological 
statements  of  Luke  are  in  the  main  confirmed  by  archaeological  evi- 
dence, it  must  remain  somewhat  uncertain  from  what  event  he 
reckoned  the  years  of  Tiberius,  how  wide  a  margin  is  covered  by  the 
word  ■'  about "  in  3 :  23,  and  whether  he  or  Tertullian  is  right  in  the 
name  of  the  governor  in  whose  term  of  office  the  first  enrolment 
under  Augustus  took  place  in  Palestine.  The  date  of  the  birth  of 
Jesus  must  apparently  be  provisionally  assigned  to  7  B.  C. 

See,  in  addition  to  the  writers  and  passages  cited  above,  Zumpt, 
Das  Gehurtsjahr  Christi,  pp.  20-224;  Wieseler,  Chronological  Syn- 
opsis, pp.  71-117,  143-50;  Andrews,  Life  of  Our  Lord,  pp.  71-82; 
WooLSEY,  in  Nezv  Englander,  October,  1869,  and  Bibliotheca  Sacra, 
April,  1870 :  ScHUKER,  History  of  Jewish  People,  Div.  I,  Vol.  II,  pp. 
105-43,  3d  German  ed.,  Vol.  I,  pp.  508-43;  Plummer,  Commentary  on 
Luke;  Sanday  in  Hastings,  D;V/?onarv  of  the  5/&/t'.  Vol.  II,  pp.  645  f. 

APPENDED  NOTE  III 

REFERENCES  TO  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  LAW   IN   LUKE  2  :  22-24 
The  problem  suggested  by  this  passage  can  be  best  presented  by 
an  analysis  of  it  into  four  parts,  as  follows : 

22  And  when  the  days  of  their  )  The  purification  of  the  mother 
purification  according  to  the  law  V  (and  child)  forty  days  after  the 
of  Moses  were  fulfilled,  \   birth   (Lev.    12:2-6). 

they  brought  him  up  to  Jerusalem,  )  Not  required  in  the  Old  Testa- 
te present  him  to  the  Lord  \    ment. 


APPENDED    NOTES 


75 


23  Cas  it  is  written  in  the  law 
of  the  Lord,  every  male  that  open- 
eth  the  womb  shall  be  called  holy 
to   the   Lord), 

24  and    to    offer    a    sacrifice    ac-  ~ 
cording   to    that   which    is    said    in 
the    law    of    the    Lord,    a    pair    of 
turtledoves,  or  two  young  pigeons. 


Devotion  of  the  first-born  to  Je- 
hovah, calling  for  redemption  by 
money  payment,  thirty  days  after 
birth    (Exod.    13:2). 

The  sacrifice  for  the  purifica- 
tion of  the  mother,  forty  days 
after  the  birth  of  the  child  (Lev. 
12:8). 


It  will  be  ?een  that  vss.  22a  and  24  refer  to  the  ceremony  of 
purification.  Now,  according  to  the  law,  this  pertained  to  the  mother. 
Vss.  22&,  23,  on  the  other  hand,  interrupting  the  reference  to  purifica- 
tion, refer  to  a  presentation  of  the  child  to  the  Lord  in  Jerusalem. 
Each  portion  of  the  passage  has  its  difficulties,  and  the  relation  of 
the  two  gives  rise  to  further  questions. 

1.  The  word  "their,"  avTwv,  in  vs.  22  is  in  apparent  conflict 
with  the  law,  which  speaks  only  of  the  purification  of  the  mother. 

2.  The  bringing  of  the  child  to  Jerusalem  mentioned  in  22b  was 
not  required  by  the  law  or  any  known  usage ;  neither  the  redemption 
of  the  child  nor  the  sacrifice  for  the  purification  of  the  mother 
required  the  presence  of  either  mother  or  child  in  the  temple. 

3.  There  is  no  mention  in  the  Old  Testament  of  a  ceremony  of 
presentation  of  the  child  to  the  Lord.  What  the  law  requires  is  the 
devotion  of  the  child  to  the  Lord,  and  the  redemption  of  him  by  the 
payment  of  five  shekels.  The  quotation  in  vs.  23  of  a  portion  of  the 
law  respecting  redemption,  joined  by  "  as  it  is  written  "  to  vs.  22, 
seems  to  imply  that  vs.  22b  referred,  in  the  writer's  mind,  to  redemp- 
tion. Apparently,  therefore,  the  writer  has  either  converted  redemp- 
tion into  presentation,  or  has  introduced  a  ceremony  of  presentation, 
and  has  referred  to  it  a  passage  which  in  the  Old  Testament  refers  to 
the  devotion  of  the  child  to  the  Lord  that  in  its  turn  necessitated  the 
redemption  of  it. 

4.  The  ceremony  of  purification  took  place  forty  days  after  the 
birth  of  the  child.  Redemption  took  place  "from  a  month  old" 
(Numb.  18:16). 

For  the  plural  "  their  "  of  vs.  22  there  is  no  direct  basis  in  the 
Old  Testament  law.  Yet  it  may  (a)  reflect  the  thought  of  the  first 
century   respecting  the  meaning  of  the  ceremony.     If  it   refers   to 


-6  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  LUKE 

the  mother  and  child,  the  basis  for  the  inclusion  of  the  child  with  the 
mother  may  have  been  furnished  in  the  implication  of  circumcision 
that  the  child  was  unclean  at  birth,  or  in  the  necessary  contact  of  a 
nursing  child  with  its  mother;  and  because  of  one  or  both  of  these 
the  thought  may  have  arisen  that  the  child  shared  in  the  uncleanness 
of  the  mother  until  her  purification,  and  that  the  ceremony  of  purifi- 
cation pertained  to  them  both.  Purely  grammatical  considerations 
would  suggest  that  the  word  "  their  "  refers  to  the  father  and  mother, 
since  it  is  to  them  that  the  plural  subject  of  the  verb  of  the  sentence 
refers.  Nor  it  is  entirely  improbable  that,  from  considerations  similar 
to  those  which  pertain  to  the  child,  the  notion  should  have  arisen  that 
the  father  shared  with  the  mother  in  the  uncleanness,  and  in  the 
ceremony  of  purification.  It  is  even  in  favor  of  this  that  the  language 
of  vs.  24,  though  agreeing  in  substance  with  Lev.  12 : 8,  which  refers 
to  the  sacrifice  to  be  offered  by  a  woman  after  child-birth,  agrees 
verbally  and  exactly,  not  with  the  Greek  version  of  this  passage,  but 
with  that  of  Lev.  5:11,  which  relates  to  the  offering  to  be  made  by  a 
man  who  by  contact  (among  possible  causes)  may  have  become 
unclean.  Yet,  on  the  whole,  the  reference  of  the  pronoun  is  more 
probably  to  the  mother  and  child.  The  suggestion  of  Edersheim  that 
it  refers  to  the  Jews  in  general  seems  wholly  improbable.  (&)  A 
different  explanation  is  suggested  by  the  general  Hebraistic  character 
of  the  first  two  chapters  of  Luke,  which,  quite  aside  from  these  verses 
in  particular,  renders  it  probable  that  Luke  is  here  translating  from 
a  Hebrew  or  Aramaic  original.  In  that  case,  especially  if  the  original 
was  in  Hebrew,  the  word  "  their "  may  have  arisen  from  a  mis- 
reading of  the  possessive  suffix  in  the  original.  This  explanation 
would  involve  the  conclusion  that  the  evangelist  was  unfamiliar  with 
the  details  of  the  Jewish  law,  hence  was  doubtless  a  gentile  —  an 
inference  not  in  itself  improbable. 

Of  the  visit  to  Jerusalem  and  the  presentation  of  the  child  to 
the  Lord  in  the  temple  there  are  likewise  two  possible  explanations, 
(o)  Though  it  was  not  required  by  law  that  either  the  mother  or  the 
child  should  go  to  Jerusalem  in  connection  either  with  the  redemption 
of  the  child  or  with  the  purification  of  the  mother,  and  though  it  is 
very  unlikely  that  it  was  customary  for  mothers  all  over  Palestine  to 
make  such  a  journey,  yet  it  is  by  no  means  improbable  that,  when 
proximity  to  Jerusalem  made  it  easy,  the  mother  would  go  in  person 


APPENDED    NOTES  77 

with  her  child  at  the  time  of  one  or  both  of  these  ceremonies.  And 
it  is  perhaps  especially  likely  that  the  parents  of  Jesus  would  be 
impelled  thus  to  go  to  Jerusalem  by  their  exceptional  feeling  about 
the  child  Jesus.  It  is  to  be  observed  that  the  narrative  does  not 
say  that  the  journey  was  required  by  law  or  custom,  but  only  states 
the  fact  that  it  was  made.  There  is,  therefore,  in  any  case  no  con- 
tradiction between  Luke's  statement  and  the  law.  The  case  is  much 
the  same  respecting  presentation  of  the  child  to  the  Lord.  Of  a 
ceremony  of  presentation  we  know  nothing  expressly  from  the  law  or 
from  Jewish  custom.  But  that  such  an  act  was  sometimes  voluntarily 
performed,  in  this  case  perhaps  exceptionally,  as  an  outward  expres- 
sion of  the  devotion  of  the  child  to  the  Lord,  which  devotion  the  law 
required,  is  by  no  means  improbable.  Indeed,  if  it  be  true,  as 
Edersheim  states  (Life  of  Jesus,  Vol.  I,  p.  194,  apparently  supported 
by  the  Mishna,  Bechoroth,  vii,  i ;  cf.  vi,  12),  that  only  a  child  without 
blemish  could  be  redeemed,  it  would  seem  almost  a  matter  of  neces- 
sity that  the  child  should  be  taken  before  the  priest,  and  so  naturally, 
in  the  case  of  all  those  living  near  to  Jerusalem,  to  the  temple. 
Such  a  presentation  could  hardly  have  followed  the  payment  of  the 
redemption  price,  but  must  have  preceded  or  accompanied  it.  Cf. 
vs.  27.  (&)  The  expression  "  to  present  him  to  the  Lord  "  may  be 
the  evangelist's  interpretation  of  Exod.  13 :  12,  "  thou  shalt  set  apart 
to  the  Lord  "  (Hebrew,    rT^Hyn     "thou  shalt  cause  to  pass  over;  " 

T  :  - 

Greek,  ayi&^ets,  "  thou  shalt  consecrate "  ) ,  or  of  the  words  which 
stood  in  his  Hebrew  source  at  this  point.  In  the  former  case  we 
should  suppose  that  the  evangelist  added  "  to  present  him  to  the 
Lord,"  and  the  quotation  of  vs.  23,  as  his  own  explanation  of  the 
visit  to  Jerusalem,  the  source  having  contained  only  vss.  22a  and  24; 
in  the  latter  case  the  whole  matter  stood  in  his  Hebrew  source,  the 
Greek  expression  being  Luke's  translation  of  it. 

Respecting  the  apparent  discrepancy  between  redemption  thirty 
days,  and  puritication  forty  days,  after  the  birth  of  the  child,  both 
spoken  of  as  occurring  on  the  same  visit  to  Jerusalem,  it  is  to  be 
observed  that,  although  the  law  of  Numb.  16 :  18  names  a  month  after 
the  birth  of  the  child  as  the  approximate  time  at  which  the  redemp- 
tion price  was  due  (on  the  force  of  the  preposition  X2  '"  such  a  case 
see  Brown,  Driver,  and  Briggs,  Hcbrezv  Lexicon,  s.  v.,  2,  b),  yet  in 


78  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  LUKE 

usage  a  certain  leeway  was  allowed.  This  seems  to  be  clearly  indi- 
cated in  the  iMishna,  Bechoroih,  viii,  6  {cf.  also  viii,  5),  in  which  it  is 
prescribed  that  "  if  a  lirst-born  son  dies  within  thirty  days,  the 
priest  must  return  the  money  which  has  been  paid  for  his  redemption, 
if  it  has  already  been  received;  but  if  the  son  dies  after  thirty  days, 
the  father  must  still  pay  the  money  to  the  priest,  if  he  has  not  already 

given  it If  the  father  dies  inside  of  thirty  days  the  son  rests 

under  the  presumption  that  the  redemption  price  has  not  been  paid, 
unless  he  is  able  to  produce  proof  of  its  payment.  If  the  father  dies 
after  thirty  days,  the  presumption  is  that  the  redemption  price  has 
been  paid,  unless  the  contrary  can  be  proved."  From  this  passage 
it  appears  that,  though  the  redemption  price  was  properly  payable  at 
the  end  of  a  month,  it  might  be  paid  even  earlier  or  later;  and  this 
renders  it  probable  that,  especially  if  the  parents  intended  to  go  to  the 
temple  at  the  time  of  the  ceremony  of  the  purification,  they  would 
thus  delay  a  few  days  the  payment  of  the  redemption  price.  Indeed, 
in  a  country  where  travel  and  transportation  of  money  were  less  easy 
than  in  modern  times,  some  leeway  would  be  almost  a  matter  of 
necessity.  For  other  and  extreme  instances  of  delay  in  the  cere- 
monies appointed  for  a  definite  time,  see  Bcchoroth,  viii,  5,  and 
Kherithoth,  i,  7. 

Against  the  supposition  that  the  whole  passage  is  simply  the 
work  of  one  who  knew  neither  the  facts  nor  Jewish  law  and  custom, 
and  in  favor  of  an  explanation  that  finds,  either  in  the  passage  as  it 
stands,  or  in  the  original  of  which  it  is  a  translation,  an  account 
consistent  with  the  law  or  the  usage  of  the  first  century,  there  are 
two  considerations  which  are  at  least  of  some  weight:  (a)  It  is 
probable  that  a  writer  who  knew  neither  the  facts  nor  Jewish  usage, 
but  who  had  access,  as  this  writer  evidently  had,  to  the  Old  Testa- 
ment scriptures  would  have  made  his  references  to  these  more 
exact,  if  not  even  verbally  so.  The  very  departures  from  the  letter 
of  the  law  imply  that  behind  this  narrative  there  lies  something 
besides  the  bare  prescriptions  of  the  law  and  the  imagination  of  the 
writer,  (b)  The  quotation  of  Lev.  12:8  in  vs.  24  does  not  bear  the 
marks  of  having  been  introduced  by  an  inventor  who  was  unfamiliar 
with  Jewish  law  and  custom.  Such  a  writer,  adding  a  specific  state- 
ment of  what  sacrifice  was  offered,  could  hardly  have  done  so  except 
to  emphasize  the  fact  that  the  offering  was  that  which  the  law  per- 


APPENDED    NOTES  79 

mitted  to  the  poor,  and  in  that  case  would  surely  not  have  failed  to 
call  atention  to  this  by  some  comment.  This  sentence  must  then 
reflect  either  acquaintance  with  the  facts  or  familiarity  with  Jewish 
usage,  if  not  also  an  assumption  of  such  familiarity  on  the  part  of 
his  readers.  In  either  case  it  is  not  the  invention  of  one  unfamiliar 
with  Jewish  usage.  But  vs.  22,  as  far  as  the  word  "  Jerusalem," 
must  come  from  the  same  hand  as  24  {i.  e.,  cannot  be  the  addition  of 
a  later  hand),  and  "their"  must  in  that  case  be  either  an  error  of 
translation  or  reflect  correctly  the  thought  of  that  time.  But  if 
vss.  22a  and  24  are,  at  least  in  their  original  form,  from  the  hand, 
not  of  an  ignorant  inventor,  but  of  one  who  knew  either  the  facts  or 
Jewish  usage  or  both,  it  is  improbable  that  vss.  22b,  23  are  an  inter- 
polation of  one  who  therein  betrays  his  ignorance.  For  it  is  improb- 
able that  one  ignorant  enough  to  insert  "  their  "  in  vs.  22  incorrectly 
(as  is  the  case  on  the  supposition  that  the  errors  of  the  passage  are 
due  to  one  who  translated  the  Hebrew  original  and  inserted  vss.  22b, 
2s)  would  feel  any  occasion  to  add  a  presentation  ceremony  to  that 
of  purification  narrated  in  this  document.  And  if  "  their  "  is  not  an 
error  of  translation,  but  a  correct  reflection  of  custom  or  thought  not 
otherwise  known  to  us,  then  it  is  gratuitous  to  assume  that  the 
reflections  in  vss.  22b,  23  of  custom  likewise  unknown  to  us,  but  not 
contradictory  to  the  law,  are  the  invention  of  ignorance. 

Apparently,  therefore,  probability  lies  between  the  possibilities 
that  "  their  "  ain-Qv  in  vs.  22  and  "  to  present "  vapaffTTjaai  in  vs.  23 
are  errors  of  translation,  and.  on  the  other  hand,  that  the  whole 
account  as  it  stands  correctly  reflects  the  Jewish  usage  and  thought 
of  the  first  century,  to  whose  divergencies  from  the  letter  of  the  law, 
not  otherwise  known  to  us,  we  have  testimony  in  this  passage. 


CHAPTER   IV 

THE  RELATION   OF  THE   SYNOPTIC  GOSPELS   TO   ONE 
ANOTHER 

In  the  previous  chapters  the  first  three  gospels  have 
been  separately  examined,  with  only  brief  and  incidental 
reference  to  their  relation  to  one  another.  But  no  atten- 
tive reader  of  these  gospels  can  have  failed  to  observe  that 
they  are  in  many  respects  alike,  and  even  a  cursory  com- 
parison of  them  on  the  one  side,  with  one  another  and,  on 
the  other,  with  the  fourth  gospel  will  serve  to  set  this  fact 
of  the  mutual  resemblance  of  the  first  three  gospels  in 
clearer  light.  The  fact  is  by  no  means  a  modern  dis- 
covery. Tatian's  treatment  of  the  several  gospels  in  the 
construction  of  his  Diatessaron  in  the  latter  part  of  the 
second  century,  shows  clearly  that  he  had  observed  the 
practical  equivalence  of  many  of  the  narratives  in  the 
several  gospels;  and  Augustine,  at  the  beginning  of  the 
fifth  century,  proposed  a  theory  to  account  for  a  part  of 
the  facts. 

In  modern  times,  the  fact  that  the  first  three  gospels 
present  to  so  large  a  degree  the  same  view  of  the  facts  of 
the  life  of  Jesus  has  led  to  the  common  application  to 
them  of  the  title  the  "  Synoptic  Gospels,"  and  the  problem 
of  discovering  how  this  resemblance  came  about,  which 
soon  resolves  itself  into  the  problem  how  these  gospels 
arose,  is  called  the  "  Synoptic  Problem." 

I.       THE  ELEMENTS  OF  THE  SYNOPTIC  PROBLEM 

The  chief  elements  of  the  problem  are  five: 
I.   The  similarity  of  these  gospels  to  one  another. — 
(a)  They  are  all  built  upon  the  same  general  historical 

80 


ELEMENTS  OF  THE  SYNOPTIC  PROBLEM         8i 

framework.  Thus  they  all  contain,  after  an  account  of  the 
preaching  of  John  the  Baptist,  and  of  the  baptism  and 
temptation  of  Jesus,  a  narrative  of  Jesus'  Galilean  min- 
istry, of  a  journey  to  Jerusalem,  of  the  last  week  in  Jeru- 
salem, and  of  the  post-resurrection  story,  all  omitting  the 
early  Judean  ministry  of  w'hich  the  fourth  gospel  contains 
an  account,  (b)  They  record  in  considerable  part  the 
same  events  in  these  periods,  a  fact  the  significance  of 
which  will  be  better  appreciated  if  it  be  remembered  how 
small  a  fraction  of  the  events  of  Jesus'  ministry  must  be 
included  in  the  narratives,  and  if  it  be  noticed  to  how 
large  an  extent  the  fourth  gospel  records  a  different  series 
of  events,  (c)  They  resemble  one  another  in  the  order 
of  events,  the  resemblance  between  Mark  and  Luke  being 
especially  close,  {d)  Finally,  there  is  very  close  verbal 
resemblance  in  the  record  of  the  events  narrated  in  com- 
mon by  two  or  by  all  three  of  the  synoptists.  This  verbal 
resemblance,  though  of  differing  degrees,  is  unlike  the 
resemblance  in  order,  in  that  it  is  apparently  unaffected  by 
the  particular  combination  of  authorities  at  the  point  at 
which  it  appears.  The  nature  and  extent  of  this  resem- 
blance may  be  seen  in  the  following  examples : 

Matt.   12:1-8  Mark  2:23-28  Luke  6:1-5 

At  that  season  Je-  And  it  came  to  pass,  Now  it  came  to  pass 

sus  went  on  the  sab-  that  he  was  going  on  on  a  sabbath,  that  he 

bath  day  through  the  the     sabbath     day  was  going  through  the 

cornfields;      and     his  through     the     corn-  cornfields;      and     his 

disciples     were     an  fields;     and    his    dis-  disciples    plucked    the 

hungred,    and    began  ciples   began,  as   they  ears  of  corn,  and  did 

to  pluck  ears  of  corn,  went,    to     pluck    the  eat,   rubbing  them   in 

and  to  eat.     But  the  ears    of    corn.      And  their  hands.    But  cer- 

Pharisees,  when  they  the     Pharisees     said  tain  of  the  Pharisees 

saw  it,  said  unto  him,  unto     him,     Behold,  said.  Why  do  ye  that 


82 


RELATION  OF  THE  SYNOPTIC  GOSPELS 


Matt.  12:  1-8 
Behold,  thy  disciples 
do  that  which  it  is 
not  lawful  to  do  upon 
the  sabbath.  But  he 
said  unto  them,  Have 
ye  not  read  what  Da- 
vid did,  when  he  was 
an  hungred,  and 
they  that  were  with 
him;  how  he  entered 
into  the  house  of 
God,  and  did  eat  the 
shewbread,  which  it 
was  not  lawful  for 
him  to  eat,  neither 
for  them  that  were 
with  him,  but  only 
for  the  priests?  Or 
have  ye  not  read  in 
the  law,  how  that  on 
the  sabbath  day  the 
priests  in  the  temple 
profane  the  sabbath 
and  are  guiltless? 
But  I  say  unto  you, 
that  one  greater  than 
the  temple  is  here. 
But  if  ye  had  known 
what  this  meaneth,  I 
desire  mercy,  and  not 
sacrifice,  ye  would  not 
have  condemned  the 
guiltless. 


Mark  2 :  23-28 
why  do  they  on  the 
sabbath  day  that 
which  is  not  lawful  ? 
And  he  said  unto 
them.  Did  ye  never 
read  what  David  did, 
when  he  had  need, 
and  was  an  hungred, 
he,  and  they  that  were 
with  him  ?  How  he 
entered  into  the  house 
of  God  when  Abiathar 
was  high  priest,  and 
did  eat  the  shew- 
bread, which  it  is  not 
lawful  to  eat  save  for 
the  priests,  and  gave 
also  to  them  that  were 
with  him? 


Luke  6:  1-5 
which  it  is  not  lawful 
to  do  on  the  sabbath 
day?  And  Jesus  an- 
swering them  said, 
Have  ye  not  read  even 
this,  what  David  did, 
when  he  was  an  hun- 
gred, he,  and  they 
that  were  with  him ; 
how  he  entered  into 
the  house  of  God, 
and  did  take  and  eat 
the  shewbread,  and 
gave  also  to  them  that 
were  with  him;  which 
it  is  not  lawful  to  eat 
save  for  the  priests 
alone? 


And  he 
said  unto  them.  The 
sabbath  was  made  for 
man,  and  not  man  for 


And  he  said 
unto  them. 


ELEMENTS  OF  THE  SYNOPTIC  PROBLEM 


83 


Matt.  12:  1-8  Mark  2:  23-28  Luke  6:  1-5 

the  sabbath :    so  that 
For    the    Son    of    man    is    The    Son    of    man    is 
the    Son    of    man    is    lord  even  of  the  sab-    lord    of    the    sabbath, 
lord   of   the   sabbath,    bath. 


Matt.  4:  18-22 
And  walking  by  the  sea  of 
Galilee,  he  saw  two  brethren, 
Simon  who  is  called  Peter,  and 
Andrew  his  brother,  casting  a 
net  into  the  sea;  for  they  were 
fishers.  And  he  saith  unto  them, 
Come  ye  after  me,  and  1  will 
make  you  fishers  of  men.  And 
they  straightway  left  the  nets, 
and  followed  him.  And  going 
on  from  thence  he  saw  other  two 
brethren,  James  the  son  of  Zebe- 
dee,  and  John  his  brother,  in  the 
boat  with  Zebedee  their  father, 
mending  their  nets  ;  and  he  called 
them.  And  they  straightway  left 
the  boat  and  their  father,  and 
followed  him. 

Matt.  3 : 7-10 
But  when  he  saw  many  of  the 
Pharisees  and  Sadducees  coming 
to  his  baptism,  he  said  unto  them. 
Ye  offspring  of  vipers,  who 
warned  you  to  flee  from  the 
wrath  to  come?  Bring  forth 
therefore  fruit  worthy  of  repent- 
ance :  and  think  not  to  say 
within  yourselves,  We  have 
Abraham  to  our  father :  for  I  say 
unto   you,   that    God   is   able   of 


Mark  i  :  16-20 
And  passing  along  by  the  sea 
of  Galilee,  he  saw  Simon  and 
Andrew  the  brother  of  Simon 
casting  a  net  in  the  sea :  for  they 
were  fishers.  And  Jesus  said 
unto  them,  Come  ye  after  me, 
and  I  will  make  you  to  become 
fishers  of  men.  And  straightway 
they  left  the  nets,  and  followed 
him.  And  going  on  a  little  fur- 
ther, he  saw  James  the  son  of 
Zebedee,  and  John  his  brother, 
who  also  were  in  the  boat  mend- 
ing the  nets.  And  straightway 
he  called  them :  and  they  left 
their  father  Zebedee  in  the  boat 
with  the  hired  servants,  and  went 
after  him. 

Luke  3 : 7-9 
He  said  therefore  to  the  multi- 
tudes that  went  out  to  be  bap- 
tized of  him, 

Ye  ofifspring  of  vipers,  who 
warned  you  to  flee  from  the 
wrath  to  come?  Bring  forth 
therefore  fruits  worthy  of  re- 
pentance, and  begin  not  to  say 
within  yourselves.  We  have 
Abraham  to  our  father :  for  I  say 
unto   you,    that    God   is   able   of 


84 


RELATION  OF  THE  SYNOPTIC  GOSPELS 


Matt.  3 : 7-10 
these  stones  to  raise  up  children 
unto  Abraham.  And  even  now 
is  the  axe  laid  unto  the  root  of 
the  trees :  every  tree  therefore 
that  bringeth  not  forth  good 
fruit  is  hewn  down,  and  cast  into 
the  fire. 

Mark  i  :  21-28 
And  they  go  into  Capernaum ; 
and  straightway  on  the  sabbath 
day  he  entered  into  the  syna- 
gogue and  taught.  And  they 
were  astonished  at  his  teaching: 
for  he  taught  them  as  having 
authority,  and  not  as  the  scribes. 
And  straightway  there  was  in 
their  synagogue  a  man  with  an 
unclean  spirit ;  and  he  cried  out, 
saying,  What  have  we  to  do  with 
thee,  thou  Jesus  of  Nazareth? 
art  thou  come  to  destroy  us  ? 
I  know  thee  who  thou  art,  the 
Holy  One  of  God.  And  Jesus 
rebuked  him,  saying.  Hold  thy 
peace,  and  come  out  of  him. 
And  the  unclean  spirit,  tearing 
him  and  crying  with  a  loud  voice, 
came  out  of  him.  And  they  were 
all  amazed,  insomuch  that  they 
questioned  among  themselves, 
saying.  What  is  this?  a  new 
teaching !  with  authority  he  com- 
mandeth  even  the  unclean  spirits, 
and  they  obey  him.  And  the  re- 
port of  him  went  out  straightway 
everywhere  into  all  the  region  of 
Galilee  round  about. 


Luke  3 : 7-9 
these  stones  to  raise  up  children 
unto  Abraham.  And  even  now 
is  the  axe  also  laid  unto  the  root 
of  the  trees :  every  tree  therefore 
that  bringeth  not  forth  good 
fruit  is  hewn  down,  and  cast  into 
the  fire. 

Luke  4:31-37 
And  he  came  down  to  Caper- 
naum, a  city  of  Galilee.  And 
he  was  teaching  them  on  the  sab- 
bath day :  and  they  were  aston- 
ished at  his  teaching;  for  his 
word  was  with  authority.  And 
in  the  synagogue  there  was  a 
man,  which  had  a  spirit  of  an 
unclean  devil ;  and  he  cried  out 
with  a  loud  voice,  Ah!  what 
have  we  to  do  with  thee,  thou 
Jesus  of  Nazareth?  art  thou 
come  to  destroy  us?  I  know 
thee  who  thou  art,  the  Holy  One 
of  God.  And  Jesus  rebuked  him, 
saying.  Hold  thy  peace,  and  come 
out  of  him.  And  when  the  devil 
had  thrown  him  down  in  the 
midst,  he  came  out  of  him,  hav- 
ing done  him  no  hurt.  And 
amazement  came  upon  all,  and 
they  spake  together,  one  with  an- 
other, saying,  What  is  this  word  ? 
for  with  authority  and  power 
he  commandeth  the  unclean 
spirits,  and  they  come  out.  And 
there  went  forth  a  rumour  con- 
cerning him  into  every  place  of 
the  region  round  about. 


ELEMENTS  OF  THE  SYNOPTIC  PROBLEM         85 

It  will  be  observed  that  in  the  first  instance  the  resem- 
blance of  all  three  is  shown ;  in  the  second,  that  of  Mat- 
thew and  Mark;  in  the  third,  that  of  Matthew  and  Luke; 
and  in  the  fourth,  that  of  Mark  and  Luke. 

Such  verbal  similarity  as  is  indicated  above  extends 
also  to  the  quotations  from  the  Old  Testament,  even 
where  the  quotation  departs  both  from  the  Hebrew  and 
the  Septuagint  version.  Illustration  of  this  may  be  seen  in 
Matt.  3  : 3  compared  with  Mark  i :  3  and  Luke  3  : 4,  and 
in  Matt.  1 1  ;  10  compared  with  Mark  i  ;  2  and  Luke  7:27. 

2.  The  differences  betzveen  these  gospels. — (a) Despite 
the  marked  resemblances  enumerated  above,  each  gospel 
has  its  own  distinct  motive,  as  has  been  pointed  out  in  the 
preceding  chapters,  (b)  Events  recorded  by  two  or  all 
three  of  the  gospels  are  treated  differently  in  the  several 
gospels  in  accordance  with  the  specific  purpose  of  each. 
Thus  the  healing  of  the  paralytic  stands  in  Mark  (2; 
1-12)  as  one  of  a  series  of  events  illustrating  the  growing 
hostility  of  the  scribes  and  Pharisees  to  Jesus.  In  Mat- 
thew (9:1-8)  it  is  recorded  in  nearly  the  same  words,  but 
is  one  of  a  series  of  events  which  either  illustrate  or  attest 
the  authority  which  Jesus  has  assumed  in  the  sermon  on 
the  mount,  to  which  the  whole  group  is  appended.  This 
particular  incident  seems  clearly  intended  to  serve  as  an 
instance  of  a  deed  of  power  attesting  the  authority  of  a 
word,  and  the  evangelist  adds  the  comment^  "when  the 
multitudes  saw  it,  they  were  afraid,  and  glorified  God 
which  had  given  such  authority  to  men."  (c)  In  a  few 
cases  there  are  wholly  independent  accounts  of  what  is 
evidently  the  same  event.  Thus  of  the  call  of  the  four 
fishermen,  Matthew  and  Mark  have  practically  tiie  same 
account  (Matt.  4: 18-22;  Mark  i  :  16-20),  but  Luke  quite 


86  RELATION  OF  THE  SYNOPTIC  GOSPELS 

a  different  one  (Luke  5:1-11).  (d)  Each  evangelist 
narrates  some  events  not  recorded  by  the  others,  and  omits 
some  recorded  by  the  others.  Thus  Luke  has  in  9:51  — 
18  :  34,  constituting  nearly  one-third  of  his  gospel,  a  series 
of  events  and  discourses  for  which  there  is  no  parallel  at 
the  corresponding  place  in  the  other  gospels,  and  most  of 
which  do  not  appear  in  the  other  gospels  at  all.  To  the 
story  of  the  public  ministry  of  Jesus,  which  Mark  also 
records,  Matthew  and  Luke  each  prefix  a  stor}^  of  the 
birth  and  infancy  of  Jesus,  yet  not  at  all  the  same  story. 

3.  The  preface  of  Luke. —  This  as  already  pointed  out 
in  chap,  iii,  furnishes  most  important  data  for  determining 
in  general  how  written  gospels  arose,  and  in  particular 
what  material,  both  oral  and  written,  was  in  existence 
when  Luke  was  written.  It  demands  careful  attention,  as 
unquestionably  the  oldest  and  most  valuable  testimony  on 
these  points  that  we  have  received  from  antiquity.  It 
reads  as  follows : 

Forasmuch  as  many  have  taken  in  hand  to  draw  up  a  narrative 
concerning  those  matters  which  have  been  fulfilled  among  us,  even  as 
they  delivered  them  unto  us,  which  from  the  beginning  were  eye- 
witnesses and  ministers  of  the  word,  it  seemed  good  to  me  also, 
having  traced  the  course  of  all  things  accurately  from  the  first,  to 
write  unto  thee  in  order,  most  excellent  Theophilus ;  that  thou  might- 
est  know  the  certainty  concerning  the  things  wherein  thou  wast 
instructed. 

From  this  statement  we  are  enabled  to  glean  the  fol- 
lowing facts  of  interest  and  significance:  (a)  When  the 
evangelist  wrote  there  were  already  in  existence  several 
narratives  of  the  life  of  Jesus,  more  or  less  complete,  {b) 
These  narratives  were  based,  at  least  in  the  intention  of 
their  writers,  on  the  oral  narratives  of  the  life  of  Jesus 
which  proceeded  from  the  personal  companions  of  Jesus, 


ELEMENTS  OF  THE  SYNOPTIC  PROBLEM         87 

men  who  had  witnessed  the  events  from  the  beginning, 
and  from  the  beginning  had  been  ministers  of  the  word, 
servants  of  the  gospel.  It  is  suggested  at  least  that  there 
was  a  somewhat  definite  body  of  such  oral  narrative,  (c) 
In  its  scope  this  oral  gospel  was  coincident  with  the  public 
life  of  Jesus.  "  They  who  from  the  beginning  were  eye- 
witnesses and  ministers  of  the  word  "  are  one  class,  not 
two;  this  phrase  cannot  mean,  "those  who  from  the 
beginning  were  eycAvitnesses  "  and  "those  who  were  min- 
isters of  the  word."  From  the  beginning  must  therefore 
mean  from  the  beginning  of  Jesus'  ministry,  not  of  his 
life,  and  the  implication  is  that  that  which  these  trans- 
mitted was  that  which  they  knew.^  (d)  These  previous 
gospels  nevertheless  left  something  to  be  desired  in  respect 
of  completeness  or  accuracy ;  our  author  recognizes  a  need 
for  a  book  different  from  those  of  his  predecessors,  (e) 
Our  evangelist  does  not  himself  belong  to  the  circle  of  eye- 
witnesses, but  to  those  to  whom  the  eyewitnesses  trans- 
mitted their  testimony  (vs.  2).     (/)  Yet  neither  is  he  far 

^  Incidentally,  therefore,  this  preface  reflects  the  same  conception  of 
the  limits  of  the  gospel  narrative  that  appears  in  Mark  and  is  expressed 
in  Acts  I  :  21,  22,  "  Of  the  men  therefore  which  have  companied  with 
us  all  the  time  that  the  Lord  Jesus  went  in  and  went  out  among  us, 
beginning  from  the  baptism  of  John,  unto  the  day  that  he  was  received 
up  from  us,  of  these  must  one  become  a  witness  with  us  of  his  resur- 
rection." This  agreement  with  Mark  and  Acts  in  reference  to  the 
limits  of  the  gospel  story  is  all  the  more  interesting  that  it  occurs  in  a 
book  which  includes  a  narrative  of  the  birth  and  its  associated  events. 
The  phrase  "  from  the  first  "  in  vs.  3  seems  to  go  back  of  what  the  evan- 
gelist here  calls  the  beginning,  to  the  source  of  the  stream  of  events,  so 
to  speak,  in  the  facts  that  led  up  to  the  ministry  of  Jesus.  It  is,  in  any 
case,  notable  that  by  his  inclusion  of  a  narrative  of  events  preceding 
the  public  ministry  of  Jesus,  the  evangelist  exceeds  the  limits  which  he 
implies  to  have  been  those  of  that  tradition  and  those  written  works 
which  preceded  his. 


88  RELATION  OF  THE  SYNOPTIC  GOSPELS 

removed  from  them ;  though  others  have  preceded  him  in 
writing,  he  classes  himself  with  those  to  whom  the  testi- 
mony of  the  eyewitnesses  was  delivered,  and  even  asso- 
ciates himself  under  the  pronoun  "  us  "  (vs.  i )  with  those 
among  whom  the  events  of  Jesus'  life  occurred,  thus  inti- 
mating that  these  events  fell  within  his  own  time,  (g) 
He  had  access,  therefore,  not  only  to  these  other  writings, 
but  to  that  living  oral  testimony  from  which  these  other 
writers  drew,  (h)  He  had  made  painstaking  investigation 
respecting  the  material  of  his  narrative,  having  searched 
all  things  out  from  the  beginning,  (i)  He  had  in  view 
in  writing,  not  those  to  whom  the  history  of  Jesus  was 
unknown,  but  those  who  had  already  been  taught  orally. 
Observe  the  significant  testimony  thus  indirectly  borne 
that  it  was  the  habit  of  the  church,  even  at  this  early  day, 
to  teach  the  life  of  Christ,  and  the  clear  indication  that  this 
gospel  at  least  was  not  for  unbelievers,  but  for  believers. 
(/)  His  object  in  writing  is  to  furnish  his  reader  an 
entirely  trustworthy  record  of  the  life  of  Jesus,  an  his- 
torical basis  of  faith. 

4.  Statements  of  early  Christian  zvriiers  concerning 
the  authorship  of  the  several  gospels. —  These  reflect  the 
opinions  held  by  Christians  in  the  early  part  of  the  second 
century.  Some  of  the  most  important  of  these  statements 
have  already  been  quoted  in  the  preceding  chapters.  Of 
special  significance  for  the  problem  with  which  this  chap- 
ter deals  are  the  statements  of  Papias  concerning  Matthew 
and  Mark,  transmitted  by  Eusebius. 

But  now  we  must  add  to  the  words  of  his  which  we  have  already 
quoted  the  tradition  which  he  [Papias]  gives  in  regard  to  Mark 
the  author  of  tlie  gospel.  It  is  in  the  following  words :  "  This  also 
the  presbyter  said :     Mark,  having  become  the  interpreter  of  Peter, 


ELEMENTS  OF  THE  SYNOPTIC  PROBLEM         89 

wrote  down  accurately,  though  not  indeed  in  order,  whatsoever  he 
remembered  of  the  things  said  or  done  by  Christ.  For  he  neither 
heard  the  Lord  nor  followed  him,  but  afterward,  as  I  said,  he  fol- 
lowed Peter,  who  adapted  his  teaching  to  the  needs  of  his  hearers, 
but  with  no  intention  of  giving  a  connected  account  of  the  Lord's 
discourses  [\6yuv  or  Xoyiuv],  so  that  Mark  committed  no  error 
while  he  thus  wrote  some  things  as  he  remembered  them.  For  he 
was  careful  of  one  thing,  not  to  omit  any  of  the  things  which  he  had 
heard,  and  not  to  state  any  of  them  falsely.  These  things  are 
related  by  Papias  concerning  Mark.  But  concerning  Matthew  he 
writes  as  follows :  "  So  then  Matthew  wrote  the  oracles  [or  sayings, 
X67ta]  in  the  Hebrew  language,  and  every  one  interpreted  them 
as  he  was  able."*     (Eusebius,  H.  E.,  iii,  39.) 

Though  these  statements  directly  prove  what  was 
beheved  in  the  second  century  rather  than  what  took  place 
in  the  first,  and  though  tliey  are  subject  to  correction  by 
internal  evidence,  they  furnish  when  confirmed  by  internal 
evidence,  a  much  stronger  basis  of  judgment  than  is 
given  by  either  alone. 

5.  The  literary  method  of  the  age. —  This  furnishes  an 
important  datum  for  the  solution  of  our  problem.  There 
is  a  strong  presumption  that  the  methods  by  which  the 
gospels  were  produced  were  not  radically  different  from 
those  which  were  common  in  that  age,  and  that,  if  the 
phenomena  which  are  discovered  by  a  careful  comparison 
of  the  gospels  are  paralleled  in  other  literature  of  that  age, 
the  processes  by  which  they  were  produced  were  also 
similar.  That  such  literary  methods  are  or  are  not  in 
vogue  today  is  of  little  significance.  It  is  the  common 
methods  of  the  time  in  which  the  gospels  arose  with  which 
we  are  concerned.  In  this  connection  two  facts  are 
important  to  observe. 

a)  Narratives  and  teachings  were  often  preserved  and 

•  McGiffert's  translation.  . 


90  RELATION  OF  THE  SYNOPTIC  GOSPELS 

transmitted  for  a  considerable  period  in  oral  form  before 
being  put  into  writing.  The  Targums  —  i.  e.,  para- 
phrases of  the  Old  Testament  books  in  the  vernacular  — 
existed  orally  for  a  century  or  more  before  assuming 
definite  written  form.  The  "  tradition  of  the  elders  "  was 
in  the  time  of  Jesus  already  somewhat  definitely  fixed,  but 
it  was  not  till  the  second  century  that  it  was  put  into  fixed 
written  form.  The  epistles  of  Paul  and  the  preface  of 
Luke's  gospel  bear  witness  that  the  story  of  the  life  of 
Jesus  was  told  by  word  of  mouth  and  made  the  subject  of 
instruction  before  the  rise  of  written  gospels,  at  least  of 
any  written  gospels  of  which  we  have  definite  knowledge. 
h)  The  construction  of  a  book  by  the  piecing  together 
of  other  books  already  written  and  published  was  a  com- 
mon practice  of  that  day.  The  book  of  Enoch,  as  we  pos- 
sess it  in  the  Ethiopic  text,  is  composed  of  smaller  books 
by  different  authors,  and  of  different  dates,  perhaps  three 
in  number.  The  Teaching  of  the  Twelve  Apostles  contains 
imbedded  in  it  the  "  Two  Ways,"  which  appears  in  a 
similar  form  in  the  ecclesiastical  canons  and  in  an  inde- 
pendent Latin  translation.  But  the  most  instructive 
example  in  its  bearing  upon  the  problem  of  the  rise  of  our 
gospels  is  the  Diatcssaron  of  Tatian,  prepared  by  an 
Assyrian  Christian  about  175  A.  D.  From  our  four  gos- 
pels, substantially  as  we  now  have  them,  Tatian  with  scis- 
sors and  paste  constructed  a  new  gospel,  to  which  either 
he  or  others  after  him  gave  the  name  Diatessaron,  "  com- 
posed of  four."  This  composite  gospel  came  into  common 
use  in  the  churches  of  Syria,  and  largely  displaced  the 
separate  gospels,  till  Theodoret,  bishop  of  Cyrrhus,  in 
the  fifth  century,  removed  them  from  some  two  hundred 
churches,  putting  in  their  place  the  separate  gospels. 


SOLUTIONS  OF  THE  PROBLEM  91 

Tlie  inference  from  these  facts  is,  of  course,  neither 
that  the  gospels  were  necessarily  the  product  of  oral  tra- 
dition, nor  that  they  were  certainly  produced  from  older 
written  gospels,  but  that  both  the  reduction  to  writing  of 
matter  for  a  time  transmitted  orally,  and  the  employment 
of  written  works  in  the  composition  of  new  books  being 
common  phenomena  of  that  time,  neither  is  to  be  denied 
as  a  priori  impossible  in  the  case  of  the  gospels,  and  either 
is  to  be  readily  admitted,  if  suitable  evidence  of  it  appears. 

II.       THEORIES  PROPOSED  FOR  THE  SOLUTION  OF  THE 
PROBLEM 

As  long  ago  as  Augustine,  as  already  mentioned,  the 
resemblances  of  the  gospels  were  noticed,  and  the  sug- 
gestion was  put  forth  by  him  that  Mark  had  condensed  his 
narrative  from  Matthew.  Jerome  discussed  the  question 
of  the  relation  between  the  original  Hebrew  Matthew  and 
the  Greek  Matthew  then  and  now  current  in  the  church. 
Serious  and  thorough  investigation  of  the  whole  problem, 
however,  dates  from  the  latter  part  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, since  which  time  many  theories  have  been  proposed. 
To  set  forth  these  theories  in  detail  lies  beyond  the  scope 
of  this  short  introduction  to  the  gospels.  It  will,  however, 
be  useful  to  indicate  in  broad  outline  the  classes  of  theories 
which  have  been  proposed. 

I.  The  theory  of  a  common  document  from  which  all 
three  of  our  synoptic  gospels  drew  was  proposed  by 
Eichhorn  in  1794,  and  for  a  time  commended  itself  to 
many  scholars.  But  to  account  for  the  differences  of  the 
gospels  as  well  as  the  resemblances,  it  was  necessary  to 
suppose  that  this  document  existed  in  several  recensions. 
Of  these   Eichhorn   made   four,    which    number   Bishop 


92  RELATION  OF  THE  SYNOPTIC  GOSPELS 

Marsh  found  it  necessary  to  raise  to  eight.  And  when  it 
was  pointed  out  that  even  this  large  number  of  documents, 
for  none  of  which  there  was  definite  objective  evidence, 
failed  fully  to  account  for  the  facts,  the  theory  broke  down 
under  its  own  weight  and  complexity,  and  today  probably 
has  no  advocates. 

2.  The  theory  of  an  oral  gospel  regards  the  oral  teach- 
ing and  preaching  of  the  apostles  and  early  missionaries 
and  catechists  as  the  direct  source  of  our  synoptic  gospels. 
This  teaching,  it  is  held,  naturally  assumed,  wdiile  the 
apostles  were  still  living,  a  somewhat  fixed  and  definite 
form,  or  perhaps  several  such  forms  resembling  one 
another,  yet  having  each  its  own  peculiarities.  The  differ- 
ences between  the  several  synoptic  gospels  are  due  to  the 
flexible  character  of  this  living  oral  tradition,  or  to  the 
variant  forms  which  it  assumed;  the  resemblances  to  its 
fixed  element.  Gieseler  gave  definite  form  to  this  view 
in  his  work,  EntsteJiiing  dcr  EvaiigcUen,  1818,  and  it  still 
has  zealous  defenders.  Like  the  tradition  in  which  it  finds 
the  source  of  our  gospels,  it  is  very  flexible  and  has  taken 
on  many  variant  forms.  Thus  Edwin  A.  Abbott,  making 
the  oral  gospel  to  contain  only  what  is  strictly  common  to 
all  three  synoptists,  reduced  it  to  little  more  than  a  series 
of  detached  and  fragmentary  notes. ^  Arthur  Wright,  on 
the  other  hand,  making  large  use  of  the  intimations  that 
there  existed  in  the  early  church  a  class  of  catechetical 
evangelists,  constructs  several  cycles  of  tradition  out  of 
which  by  varied  combination  he  supposes  our  gospels  to 
have  arisen.'* 

^  See  Abbott,  The  Common  Tradition. 

*  See  Wright,  Composition  of  the  Gospels  and  Synopsis  of  the 
Gospels  in  Greek. 


SOLUTIONS  OF  THE  PROBLEM  93 

The  serious  question  concerning  this  general  theory  is 
not  whether  an  oral  gospel  in  fact  existed,  nor  whether 
it  is  the  source  of  our  gospels  —  both  these  things  are 
generally  admitted,  and  are  almost  directly  affirmed  in 
Luke's  preface  —  but  whether  it  is  the  direct  source  of  the 
present  gospels.  The  close  resemblances  of  the  gospels  to 
one  another  in  certain  parts  and  respects,  as  well  as  the 
peculiar  and  uneven  distribution  of  these  resemblances, 
lead  many  scholars  to  believe  that  between  the  oral  gospel 
and  the  present  gospels  there  must  have  been  written  gos- 
pels, and  also  that  there  must  have  been  some  direct 
dependence  of  our  present  gospels  on  one  another.  Thus 
there  has  arisen  another  class  of  theories,  which  admit  the 
existence  and  influence  of  the  oral  gospel,  but  do  not  find 
in  it  the  immediate  and  sole  source  of  our  present  gospels. 
They  may  be  grouped  under  the  head  of  — 

3.  The  theory  of  an  original  document  or  documents 
supplemented  by  that  of  the  interdependence  of  our  pres- 
ent gospels.  It  is  evident  that  this  view  naturally  takes  on 
many  forms  according  to  the  document  or  documents 
assumed  to  be  original  and  the  order  of  dependence  which 
is  predicated.  It  must  suffice  to  mention  the  views  of  a 
few  well-known  scholars. 

Meyer  regarded  the  original  Hebrew  gos|)el  of  Mat- 
thew, the  oracles  spoken  of  by  Papias,  as  the  oldest  docu- 
ment. This  was  used  by  Mark,  who  had  as  his  other 
chief  source  his  personal  recollection  of  the  preaching  of 
Peter.  Our  present  gospel  of  Matthew  grew  out  of  the 
original  Hebrew  gospel  of  Matthew  largely  under  the 
influence  of  Mark,  and  under  this  influence  was  translated 
into  Greek.  Luke  used  Mark  and  the  Greek  Matthew  as 
we  still  have  it. 


94  RELATION  OF  THE  SYNOPTIC  GOSPELS 

Bernhard  Weiss  holds  a  similar  view,  differing  most 
conspicuously  in  holding  that  Luke  used,  not  our  present 
MatthcAv,  but  a  Greek  translation  of  the  original  Matthew. 

Holtzmann,  Bruce,  Wendt,  and  others  while  recogniz- 
ing the  use  both  of  Alark  and  of  the  original  Matthew  by 
the  first  and  third  evangelists,  regard  Mark  itself  as  an 
independent  work.  According  to  this  view,  there  lie  at 
the  basis  of  our  gospels  two  original  and  independent 
documents,  the  original  Matthew  and  Mark,  the  latter 
identical,  or  nearl}^  so,  with  our  present  second  gospel. 
This  is  known  as  the  two-document  theory. 

Wernle  finds  the  two  chief  sources  of  our  Matthew 
and  Luke  in  the  gospel  of  Mark  and  a  collection  of  dis- 
courses, but  supposes  that  each  of  them  had  besides  these 
two  another  source  or  sources,  that  of  Alatthew  consisting 
of  discourse  material  only,  that  of  Luke  containing  both 
narrative  and  discourse  material. 

It  is  beyond  the  scope  of  this  brief  chapter  to  under- 
take a  full  exposition  either  of  the  principles  by  which  the 
solution  of  the  problem  must  be  reached,  or  of  the  facts 
which  an  attentive  study  of  the  gospels  discovers,  or  of  the 
conclusions  to  which  an  interpretation  of  these  facts  lead. 
It  must  suffice  to  state  a  little  more  fully  than  has  been 
done  under  the  "  Elements  of  the  Problem  "  some  of  the 
more  important  facts,  and  to  indicate  very  briefly  the 
limits  within  which  the  solution  probably  lies. 

III.       FACTS  RESPECTING  THE  RELATION   OF   THE  GOSPELS 
TO  ONE  ANOTHER 

I.  In  material  common  to  all  three  gospels  Mark's 
gospel  resembles  each  of  the  others,  both  in  order  of 
events  and  in  content  of  sections,  much  more  closely  than 


RELATION  OF  GOSPELS  TO  ONE  ANOTHER       95 

these  two  resemble  each  other.  Indeed,  there  are  no 
instances  of  Matthew  and  Luke  agreeing  in  order  against 
Mark,  and  their  agreements  against  Mark  in  content 
of  sections  common  to  all  three  are  confined  to  an  occa- 
sional brief  phrase  and  the  occasional  common  omission 
of  material  found  in  Mark.  This  indicates  that  Mark 
is  in  some  sense  the  middle  term  between  Matthew  and 
Luke,  but  does  not  determine  in  precisely  what  sense  it  is 
such. 

2.  Matthew  and  Luke  have  in  common  a  considerable 
amount  of  material  not  found  in  Mark.  The  verbal 
resemblance  of  this  material  in  the  two  gospels  is  often 
very  close;  but  in  its  location  there  is  scarcely  any  agree- 
ment between  them.  This  marked  difference  between  the 
treatment  of  the  material  which  both  share  with  Mark  and 
that  which  they  share  with  one  another  but  not  with  Mark, 
must  evidently  be  taken  into  account  in  explaining  their 
method  of  procedure. 

3.  Matthew  has  a  considerable  amount  of  discourse 
material  peculiar  to  himself.  This  material  is  mainly  con- 
tained in  long  discourses  in  which,  with  the  exception  of 
the  sermon  on  the  mount,  the  narrative  introduction  and 
the  beginning  of  the  discourse  are  found  in  Mark.  Mat- 
thew has  no  narratives  peculiar  to  himself,  except  in  the 
infancy  sections,  and  the  story  of  the  guards  at  the  sepul- 
cher  of  Jesus  (27:62-66).^ 

4.  Luke  has  a  number  of  narratives  and  a  consider- 
able amount  of  discourse  material  peculiar  to  himself. 
The  great  Perean  section  (9:57 — 18:14;  19:1-28), 
practically  made  up  of  discourses  with  brief  narrative 

"To  these  should  perhaps  be  added  9:27-31,  a  variant  account  of 
20:  29-34,  as  9:  32-34  is  clearly  a  duplicate  of  12:  22-24. 


96  RELATION  OF  THE  SYNOPTIC  GOSPELS 

introductions,  has  no  parallel  at  this  point  in  either  of  the 
other  gospels.  Of  the  discourse  material  proper,  a  part  is 
peculiar  to  Luke,  a  part  is  found  also  in  Matthew  differ- 
ently located,  the  two  elements  being  closely  interwoven. 
5.  The  resemblances  of  parallel  passages  in  the  gos- 
pels, especially  in  discourse  material,  are  often  very  close; 
closer,  e.  g.,  than  is  usual  in  quotations  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment from  the  Old  Testament.  These  latter  were  made, 
of  course,  from  a  written  source,  but  usually,  no  doubt, 
from  memory.  The  relation  of  the  synoptic  gospels  to 
one  another  and  to  the  sources  which,  as  we  must  in  view 
of  their  resemblances  infer,  lay  behind  them,  closely 
resemble  those  which  are  discovered  between  Tatian  and 
his  sources ;  these  latter  being  our  four  gospels,  which  he 
possessed  in  substantially  their  present  form.  While 
Tatian's  resemblance  to  his  sources  perhaps  exceeds  that 
of  the  gospels  in  some  respects,  for  which  there  are  special 
reasons,  in  other  respects  he  has  used  his  sources  with 
greater  freedom  than  the  evangelists  have  apparently 
allowed  themselves  in  reference  to  theirs.^* 

IV.       GENERAL  CONCLUSIONS 

While  the  above  statement  of  facts  is  very  far  from 
complete,  it  is  perhaps  sufficient  to  prepare  the  way  for  a 
tentative  statement  of  conclusions  for  which  a  high  degree 
of  probability  may  be  claimed. 

1.  The  gospels  are  not  independent  documents,  but 
have  some  literary  relationship. 

2.  That  relationship  is  documentary,  i.  e.,  due  not 
solely  to  the  use  of  a  common  tradition,  but  mediated  in 
part  by  written  gospels. 

'  See  HoBsoN,  The  Synoptic  Problem  in  the  Light  of  Tatian's  Diates- 
saron  (.Chicago,  190^). 


GENERAL  CONCLUSIONS 


97 


3.  Mark's  gospel,  or  a  nearly  equivalent  document, 
was  used  by  both  the  others,  furnishing  them  their  general 
framework  and  the  material  common  to  all  three. 

4.  There  was  another  source,  or  other  sources,  also 
written,  which  Matthew  and  Luke  possessed  in  common, 
but  which  one  or  both  of  them  used  in  a  very  different  way 
from  that  in  which  they  used  Mark ;  in  particular,  in  that 
this  source  or  these  sources  did  not  control  the  arrange- 
ment and  order  of  material. 

5.  Since  the  first  and  third  gospels  each  have  a  con- 
siderable amount  of  material  in  common,  yet  each  has  also 
much  that  is  not  used  by  the  other,  it  is  evident,  either  that 
neither  of  them  used  all  that  was  in  their  common  source, 
or  that  one  at  least  of  them  had  also  a  source  not  possessed 
by  the  other.  If  they  had  only  a  common  source,  that 
source  was  in  all  probability  the  Logia  of  Matthew  men- 
tioned by  Papias.  If  in  addition  to  this  common  source 
the  first  evangelist  had  a  peculiar  source,  this  latter  was 
probably  the  Logia  spoken  of  by  Papias.  The  hypothesis 
of  a  source  or  sources  used  in  common  by  both,  plus  a 
source  peculiar  to  Matthew,  seems  better  to  account  for 
the  facts  than  that  of  a  common  source  only.  Even  the 
common  source  must  ha\'e  been  used  quite  differently  by 
the  two  evangelists. 

6.  Behind  all  our  present  gospels  and  their  written 
sources  there  doubtless  lay,  as  Luke's  preface  indicates,  an 
oral  tradition  ultimately  derived  from  the  eyewitnesses. 
Being,  as  Luke's  preface  also  suggests,  still  in  existence 
when  he  wrote,  this  tradition  was  not  only  a  probable 
source  of  the  oldest  documents,  but  probably  contributed 
something  directly  also  to  the  latest  gospels. 

7.  Our  present  gospels  of  Matthew  and  Luke  exceed 


98  RELATION  OF  THE  SYNOPTIC  GOSPELS 

somewhat,  as  Luke's  preface  indicates,  the  scope  of  this 
tradition  and  of  the  documents  based  directly  on  it. 
Ahke  the  comparison  of  our  gospels  and  the  testimony  of 
Luke's  preface  indicate  that  for  the  infancy  narratives, 
and  probably  for  some  other  portions  of  the  gospels, 
minor  sources  additional  to  those  named  above  must  be 
supposed. 

8.  There  is  nothing  in  the  facts  respecting  the  relation 
of  the  gospels  to  one  another  to  disprove  the  earliest  state- 
ments of  tradition  respecting  the  authorship  of  these  gos- 
pels. But  the  statement  of  Papias  respecting  the  Logia  of 
Matthew  must  be  supposed  to  refer,  not  to  our  present 
first  gospel,  but  to  one  of  its  sources. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  JOHN 
I.   THE  AUTHOR 

I.  His  nationality  as  it  appears  in  the  hook  itself. — 
On  this  point  several  classes  of  facts  bear  convergent 
testimony. 

a)  The  author  is  familiar  with  Jewish  history,  cus- 
toms, and  ideas.  Thus  he  speaks  of  the  law  as  given  by 
Moses  (1:17);  of  the  piece  of  ground  which  Jacob  gave 
to  Joseph  (4:5,  6;  cf.  Gen.  48:22^)  ;  of  the  priests  and 
Levites  in  Jerusalem  (i  :  19)  ;  of  Caiaphas  as  high-priest 
that  year,  reflecting  the  frequent  changes  in  the  high- 
priestly  office  made  by  the  Roman  and  Herodian  authori- 
ties   (11:49,    51;    18:13'-^).      He  is   familiar  with  the 

^  The  Septuagint  reads  in  Gen.  48 :  22,  iyih  5^  diSwfj.1  trot  fflKi/xa 
"I  give  thee  Shechem  "  (for  this  form  of  the  name  see  Josh.  24:32 
and  Jos.,  Antiq.,  iv,  8,  44),  which  probably  represents  Jewish  tradition. 
The  statement  of  the  evangelist  is  particularly  significant  as  indicating 
an  acquaintance  both  with  the  region  spoken  of  and  with  the  passage  or 
the  tradition  based  on  it. 

^  These  statements  are,  indeed,  alleged  to  betray  ignorance  on  the 
writer's  part,  implying  that  the  high-priest  was  appointed  annually.  But 
it  is  to  be  observed  {a)  that  in  18:  13-24  the  writer  shows  himself  well 
acquainted  with  the  relations  of  Annas  and  Caiaphas,  and  gives  to 
Annas  the  title  of  high-priest  in  immediate  connection  with  his  mention 
of  Caiaphas  as  high- priest  that  year;  {b)  that  the  office  of  high-priest 
was,  according  to  Jewish  law,  one  of  life-tenure,  but  that  the  Roman 
and  Herodian  authorities  made  frequent  changes  for  their  own  ends ; 
there  were  three  high-priests  between  Annas  and  Caiaphas ;  (c)  that 
from  the  Jewish  point  of  view  an  ex-high-priest  still  living,  at  least  the 
oldest  living  high-priest,  would  be  most  legitimately  entitled  to  the 
name,  while,  of  course,  the  de  facto  condition  would  necessarily  be  recog- 

99 


loo  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  JOHN 

Jewish  cycle  of  feasts  (2:13;  5:1;  6:4;  ^'.2,  37 — cf. 
Lev.  23:35,  36;  2  Mace.  10:6;  Jos.,  Antiq.,  Ill,  10,  4 — 
10:22;  11:55:  12:1):  with  the  time  at  Avhich  they 
occurred  (6:4,  10;  10:22)  ;  with  the  custom  of  attend- 
ing them  in  Jerusalem  (7:2-13)  ;  w-ith  the  habit  of  the 
Galileans  in  particular  (4:45:  cf.  Luke  2:41  and  abund- 
ant outside  evidence;  11  :55)  ;  and  with  the  practice  of 
selling  in  the  temple  at  the  feast  time  (2:14-16;  cf. 
Edersheim,  Life  of  Jesus,  Vol.  I,  p.  369).  He  represents 
correctly  the  Jewish  usage  and  feeling  respecting  the 
sabbath  and  the  "preparation"  (5:10  ff. ;  19:31,  42; 
cf.  '/■.2T,).  He  is  acquainted  with  the  marriage  customs 
of  the  Jews  (2:1  ff. ;  cf.  3  :29)  ;  with  the  Jewish  ideas 
about  defilement  and  the  custom  of  purification  (2:6; 
3:25;    11:55;    18:28;  c/.  Mark  7  : 3  ff . )  ;  and  with  the 

nized  also  ;  (d)  that  these  facts  actually  led  to  the  designation  of  two 
different  men  as  high-priest  at  the  same  time,  as,  e.  g.,  in  Luke  3  :  2, 
where  Annas  and  Caiaphas  are  said  to  have  been  high-priests  at  a  cer- 
tain time  (cf.  Acts  4:6,  where  Annas  is  called  high-priest),  and  in 
Jos.,  Antiq.,  xx,  8,  8;  xx,  8,  11  ;  xx,  9,  i  and  2,  especially  the  last 
passage,  where  Ananus  and  Jesus  are  both  called  high-priests  in  the 
same  sentence  ;  see  also  Schurer,  History  of  the  Jewish  People,  Div.  II, 
Vol.  I,  pp.  202-6,  especially  the  passages  cited  by  him  on  p.  203 ; 
also  3d  German  edition.  Vol.  II,  pp.  221-24;  Josephus,  Jewish  War, 
II,  12,  6  ;  IV,  3,  7,  9  ;  IV,  4,  3  ;  P'it.,  38  ;  (e)  that  the  evangelist,  who 
evidently  knows  the  personal  relations  of  Annas  and  Caiaphas,  and, 
with  an  unstudied  carelessness  to  explain  the  apparent  contradiction, 
represents  two  men  as  high-priest  at  the  same  time,  yet  who  in  this 
follows  usage  illustrated  also  in  Luke  and  Josephus,  can  hardly  have 
been  so  ignorant  of  the  situation  as  to  suppose  that  Caiaphas  held  office 
for  one  year  only  (he  was,  in  fact,  high-priest  for  a  number  of  years, 
though  his  three  predecessors  must  each  have  been  in  office  a  very  short 
time),  or  that  the  high-priestly  office  was  an  annual  one;  (f)  that 
accordingly  "  that  year  "  is  probably  to  be  understood,  not  of  the  year 
of  Caiaphas's  high-priesthood,  but  that  year  —  that  dreadful  year  —  (in 
the  high-priesthood  of  Caiaphas)  in  which  Jesus  died.  (Cf.  B.  Weiss, 
ad  loc.) 


THE  AUTHOR  loi 

Jews'  manner  of  burying  (11:44;  19:39.  40)-  His 
statements  in  8  :  59 ;  10 :  31,  33  are  in  accordance  with  the 
Jewish  penalty  for  blasphemy  (cf.  Lev.  24:10-16),  yet 
are  wholly  devoid  of  any  studied  attempt  to  be  thus  true 
to  Jewish  custom.  He  knows  the  feeling  of  the  Jews 
toward  Samaritans  (4:9);  the  relations  of  the  Jewish 
and  Roman  authorities  in  the  trial  of  a  prisoner,  and  the 
function  of  the  high-priest  in  the  matter ;  and  gives  a  very 
vivid  account  of  the  trial  of  Jesus  in  precise  conformity  to 
the  then  existing  political  situation  (chaps.  18,  19). 

To  these  passages  may  be  added  certain  references  to 
Jewish  affairs  which  occur,  not  in  the  language  of  the 
author  himself,  but  in  that  of  Jesus  and  the  other  char- 
acters of  the  story.  If  these  be  supposed  to  owe  their 
form  to  the  author,  then  of  course  they  are  equally  valu- 
able as  evidence  of  nationality  with  those  already  named. 
If  they  are  to  be  attributed  wholly  and  directly  to  the 
characters  of  the  history,  then  they  bear  witness  to  the 
accuracy  of  the  report,  which  would  lead  to  the  same  con- 
clusion respecting  the  author  of  the  book,  or  of  his  sources 
if  such  he  had. 

Thus,  as  respects  matters  of  external  history,  in  2 :  20 
the  Jews  refer  to  the  forty-six  years  which  the  rebuilding 
of  the  temple  begun  by  Herod  had  occupied ;  ^  and,  in 

^According  to  Jos.,  AiUiq.,  xv,  ii,  i,  the  rebuildinjj  of  the  temple 
began  in  the  eighteenth  year  of  Herod,  that  is,  between  Nisan  734  and 
735  A.  U.  C.  From  other  statements  of  Josephus  it  is  rendered  prob- 
able that  the  building  of  the  temple  was  begun  in  December  or  January. 
Combining  these  data,  the  end  of  734  or  beginning  of  735  >s  given  as 
the  date  of  the  beginning  of  the  temple.  Reckoning  by  the  usual  Jewish 
method  from  Nisan  i  to  Nisan  i,  and  counting  any  portion  of  the  year 
at  either  end  of  the  period  as  a  year,  the  forty-fifth  year  of  the  building 
of  the  temple  would  end,  and  the  forty-sixth  year  would  begin,  Nisan  i, 
779.     If,  then,  we  assume  that  the  period  of  forty-six  years,  John  2:  20, 


I02  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  JOHN 

18:31,  to  the  unlawfulness  of  their  putting  a  man  to 
death,  in  precise  accordance  with  the  statement  of  the  Tal- 
mud {Jer.  Sanh.,  i,  i,  fol.  i8a;  vii,  2,  fol.  24b)  that  the 
Jews  lost  the  power  to  enforce  sentence  of  death  forty 
years  before  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem,  viz.,  about  30 
A.  D.  The  language  of  Nicodemus  in  7:51  is  in  accord- 
is  reckoned  strictly  according  to  the  above-mentioned  Jewish  method, 
even  the  two  weeks  from  Nisan  i  to  Nisan  15  being  counted  as  a  year, 
the  time  of  the  utterance  would  be  the  passover,  Nisan  15,  of  the  year 
779  A.  U.  C,  which  is  26  A.  D.  If,  however,  it  be  supposed  that  so 
brief  a  period  as  two  weeks  would  be  ignored  in  reckoning,  then  the 
utterance  would  date  from  the  passover  of  780  A.  U.  C,  which  is  27 
A.  D.  The  same  result  is  reached  if  it  be  supposed  that  Josephus  used 
the  Roman  reckoning  from  January  to  January  (cf.  Lewin,  Chronology 
of  the  Neiv  Testament,  pp.  22  tf.). 

The  calculation  of  Wiesf.ler,  Chronology  of  the  Four  Gospels,  p. 
165,  by  which  he  reaches  the  year  781  (and  in  which  he  is  followed  by 
ScHURER,  Div.  I,  Vol.  I,  p.  410,  n.  12;  3d  German  ed..  Vol.  I,  p.  369, 
n.  12),  is  directly  contrary  to  his  own  statement  of  the  Jewish  method 
of  reckoning,   and  the  examples   which   he   himself  cites   on  pp.   51-56. 

The  only  way  of  reaching  a  later  date  is  that  adopted  by  Lewin, 
who,  comparing  ifiKodofiTridT]  6  vabs  ovtos  of  John  2  :  20  with  (^Kodo/xridri  di 
6  va6s  of  Jos.,  Antiq.,  xv,  11,  3,  infers  that  the  evangelist  is  speaking  of 
the  building  of  the  sanctuary  exclusive  of  the  foundations,  which  Jose- 
phus has  mentioned  previously.  But  it  is  improbable  that  one  speaking 
after  the  lapse  of  nearly  fifty  years  would  make  such  a  discrimination. 

That  the  forty-six  years  refer  to  the  period  which  at  the  time  of 
speaking  had  elapsed  since  the  beginning  of  the  rebuilding  of  the  temple, 
is  evident  from  the  fact  that  the  temple  was,  on  the  one  hand,  practically 
completed  within  nine  and  a  half  years  (Jos.,  Antiq.,  xv,  11,  5,  6),  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  not  wholly  completed  until  a  short  time  before  its 
destruction  by  the  Romans  in  the  war  of  66-70  (Jos.,  Antiq.,  xx,  9,  7). 
Now,  the  mention  of  this  precise  period,  not  a  round  number,  can  be 
accounted  for  only  on  the  supposition  that  the  author  possessed  very 
accurate  sources  of  information  as  to  the  words  of  Jesus  on  this  occa 
sion,  or  else  that  he  had  a  very  definite  theory  as  to  the  chronology  of 
Jesus'  life,  and  also  an  accurate  knowledge  of  Jewish  history.  In  either 
case  the  author  —  /.  e.,  the  author  of  this  section,  and  presumably,  until 
there  is  evidence  to  distinguish  them,  the  author  of  the  book  —  was  in 


THE  AUTHOR  103 

ance  with  Jewish  law  (Deut.  i  :  16;  19: 15),  and  that  of 
Pilate  in  18 :  39  is  in  harmony  with  the  statement  of  the 
Jewish  author  of  Matt.  27:15,  on  which,  however,  it  may 
of  course  be  based.  In  3  :  14  Jesus  speaks  of  Moses  lifting 
up  the  serpent  in  the  wilderness;  in  6:31  the  Jews  refer 
to  the  manna  with  which  the  children  of  Israel  were  fed ;  * 
in  7:42  the  Jews  refer  to  Bethlehem  as  the  village  where 
David  was.  In  the  matters  of  Jewish  usage  and  feeling, 
the  language  of  John  in  3  :  29  is  true  to  the  marriage  cus- 
toms of  Judea,^  that  of  the  Samaritan  woman  in  4  :  20  to 
the  Samaritan  ideas  about  place  of  worship,  as  are  those 
of  the  Jews  in  8:48  to  the  Jewish  feeling  toward  the 
Samaritans.  In  7 :  2t^  Jesus  refers  to  the  practice  of  cir- 
cumcising a  child  even  on  a  sabbath. 

In  1 :  29  John  the  Baptist  points  out  Jesus  as  the  Lamb 
of  God  that  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the  world,  an  evident 

all  probability  a  Jew.  These  facts  must  also  be  taken  into  account  in 
deciding  whether  the  cleansing  of  the  temple  narrated  in  this  section  is 
identical  with  that  related  by  the  synoptists,  and  if  so,  whether  it  is 
wrongly  placed  by  the  fourth  evangelist.  Prima  facie,  at  least,  they  make 
against  the  latter  supposition,  since  the  year  27  A.  D.,  which  they  yield 
for  the  events  recorded  by  John,  antedates  by  three  years  that  of  the 
passion  history.     Cf.  n.  26,  p.  iiy. 

*  The  references  in  this  connection  to  Old  Testament  history  are 
particularly  significant.  The  feeding  of  the  five  thousand,  reminding 
the  people  of  Moses's  feeding  of  the  children  of  Israel  and  his  promise 
that  a  prophet  like  unto  himself  should  the  Lord  God  raise  up  unto 
them  (vs.  14;  cf.  Deut.  18:  15),  and  the  demand  of  the  people  for  a 
continuous  feeding  which  should  show  Jesus  to  be  the  prophet  like 
Moses  (vss.  30,  31),  together  with  the  wholly  unstudied  reference  to 
these  things,  can  hardly  be  accounted  for  save  as  either  a  very  accurate 
report  of  the  actual  event  or  as  coming  from  one  who  was  thoroughly 
familiar  with  the  Jewish  scriptures  and  the  Jewish  way  of  interpreting 
them. 

°  Cf .  Edersheim,  Social  Life,  p.  152. 


104  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  JOHN 

echo  of  Isa.,  chap.  53.  In  i  :4i,  45,  49;  7:27,  41,  42; 
10:24;  12:34  there  are  repeated  reflections  of  the  cur- 
rent Jewish  conceptions  of  the  INIessiah.  In  1:21,  25; 
6:14;  7:40-43  appear  similar  echoes  of  Jewish  ideas 
about  EHjah  and  "  the  prophet ;  "  in  4 :  2y,  of  the  Jewish 
feehng  about  a  rabbi  talking  with  a  woman;  in  4:25,  29, 
42,  of  the  Samaritan  expectation  of  the  Messiah ;  ^  in  8 : 
33,  ^y,  of  the  Jewish  conception  of  the  value  of  Abra- 
hamic  descent;  in  9:28,  of  the  Pharisees'  claim  to  be 
Moses's  disciples  (cf.  Matt.  23:2);  in  7:41,  52,  of  the 
prejudice  of  the  Judeans  against  the  Galileans;  in  7:49, 
of  the  contempt  of  the  Pharisees  for  the  common  people, 
the  Am-haaretz ;  and  in  9:2,  of  the  general  Jewish  feel- 
ing about  the  cause  of  misfortunes. 

b)  The  author  is  acquainted  with  the  Old  Testament, 
not  only  reporting  the  use  of  it,  or  refereiice  to  it,  by  Jesus 
and  others  (i  :2s,  29,  45,  51;  6:45,  49;  7:19,  22,  38; 
8:17;  10:34  f.;  13:18;  15:25;  17:  12),"  but,  like  the 
first  evangelist,  frequently  quoting  or  referring  to  it 
himself  and  pointing  out  the  fulfilment  of  its  prophecies 
in  the  life  of  Jesus  (2  :  17,  22 ;  12  ;  14,  38-41 ;  19 :  24,  28, 
36,  37;  20:9).  These  quotations,  moreover,  and  the 
remarks  by  w^hich  he  accompanies  them,  show  clearly  that 
he  believes  in  the  authority  of  the  Old  Testament  and  its 
divinely  given  prophecies.  He  evidently  holds  with  Jesus 
that,  as  compared  with  gentiles  or  Samaritans,  the  Jews 
know  the  true  way  of  salvation  (4 :  22). 

'  Cf.  LiGHTFooT,  Biblical  Essays,  p.  154;  Cowley,  in  the  Expositor, 
March,  1895. 

'  It  is  impossible  to  say  with  certainty  precisely  how  many  of  these 
quotations  are  intended  to  be  attributed  to  others,  and  for  how  many 
the  writer  makes  himself  responsible.  Quite  likely  some  of  this  list 
should  be  placed  in  the  next  one.  Both  groups  indicate  the  author's 
attitude  toward  the  Old  Testament. 


THE  AUTHOR  105 

c)  He  is,  moreover,  familiar  with  the  Hebrew  lan- 
guage, as  is  indicated  by  his  use  and  interpretation  of 
Hebrew  names  (1:38,41,42;  5:2;  9:7;  19:13,  17; 
20: 16)  ;  by  the  fact  that  some  of  his  quotations  from  the 
Old  Testament  are  not  made  from  the  Septuagint,  but  are 
apparently  his  own  translation  of  the  Hebrew  (13:18; 
19:37;  to  wdiich  may,  perhaps,  be  added  12:40);  and 
by  the  Greek  in  which  the  book  is  written,  which  is 
throughout  Hebraistic  in  its  style,  especially  in  its  use  of 
non-periodic  sentences,  and  the  frequent  employment  of 
the  less  distinctive  conjunctions.^ 

When  all  this  evidence  is  taken  together,  it  strongly 
tends  to  the  conclusion  that  our  gospel  is  of  Jewish  origin. 
Some  of  the  facts  are  quite  consistent  w'ith  gentile- 
Christian  authorship;  some  might  be  explained  by  the 
assumption  of  the  use  of  Jewish  sources;  but  the  obvious 
meaning  of  them  all,  to  be  accepted  unless  overbalanced 
and  set  aside  by  counter-evidence,  is  that  the  material  of 
the  book  is  from  the  hand  of  a  man  who  is  of  Jewish  birth, 
and,  in  a  sense,  a  Jew  in  relig"ion. 

2.  TJic  author's  residence. —  On  this  matter  there  is 
a  diversity  of  evidence. 

a)  He  is  familiar  w'ith  the  geography  of  Palestine 
and  the  topography  of  Jerusalem,  and  in  particular  with 
things  as  they  were  before  the  fall  of  Jerusalem  in  70 
A.  D.  He  knows  of  the  Bethany  beyond  Jordan,  as  dis- 
tinguished from  the  Bethany  near  Jerusalem  ( i  :  28 ;  cf. 
II  :  I,  18;    12  : 1  ^)  ;   of  Bethsaida  as  the  city  of  Andrew 

'  See  Schlatter,  Die  Sprache  iind  Heimat  des  vierten  Evangclistcn 
(Giitersloh,  1902),  whose  argument,  even  if  it  includes  items  that  are  of 
little  weight,  is,  as  a  whole,  weighty. 

*  Here,  also,  it  is  alleged,  and  even  by  so  recent  a  writer  as 
Martikeau   (Seat  of  Authority  in  Religion,  p.  212),  that  the  evangelist 


io6  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  JOHN 

and  Peter  ( i  :  44,  apparently  a  more  accurate  statement 
than  the  imphcation  of  the  synoptists  that  they  came 
from  Capernaum;  see  Mark  i  :2i,  29)  ;  of  Cana  of  Gah- 
lee  and  its  relation  to  Capernaum  (2:1,  12;  4:46,  47; 
Capernaum  lies  about  1,500  feet  lower  than  Cana)  ;  of 
^non  near  to  Salim'"  iS'-^S),  oi  Sychar,  and  Jacob's 
Well,  the  former  of  which  modern  exploration  has  identi- 
fied with  'Askar,  half  a  mile  across  the  valley  from  the 
unquestionably  identified  Jacob's  Well;  of  the  Pool  of 
Bethesda  in  Jerusalem,  with  its  five  porches  (5:2),  con- 
cerning which,  again,  most  interesting  discoveries  have 
been  made  in  recent  times ;^^  of  the  Sea  of  Galilee  (6:1), 
and  the  location  of  Capernaum  and  Tiberias  in  relation 
to  it  (6:17,  24,  25)  ;  of  the  treasury  in  the  temple  (8:20; 
cf.  Edersheim,  Temple,  pp.  26,  2y)  ;  of  the  Pool  of 
Siloam  (9:7),  easily  identified  today  with  'Ain  Silwan,^^ 
southeast  of  Jerusalem,  but  within  the  limits  of  the  wall 

betrays  ignorance.  But,  surely,  in  view  of  his  evident  discrimination  of 
the  two  places,  and  of  the  recently  discovered  and  probable  evidence  that 
there  was  a  Bethany  beyond  Jordan,  such  an  objection  is  feeble,  if  not 
self-refuting.  See  Conder,  art.  "  Bethabara  "  in  Hastings's  Dictionary 
of  the  Bible,  Vol.  I,  p.  76  ;    Smith,  Historical  Geography,  p.  496,  n.   i. 

^"  On  the  identification  of  this  place  see  W.  A.  Stevens,  in  Journal 
of  Biblical  Literature,  1883,  and  Henderson,  art.  "  Aenon "  in  Has- 
tings's Dictionary  of  the  Bible;  cf.  art.  '' Salim  "  in  the  Encyclopcedia 
Biblica,  Vol.  IV,  col.  4248. 

"  See  Palestine  Exploration  Fund  Quarterly  Statement,  1888,  pp. 
115-34;  1890,  pp.  118-20;  Conder,  art.  "Bethesda"  in  Hastings's 
Dictionary  of  the  Bible,  Vol.  I,  p.  279. 

"^  See  Robinson,  Biblical  Researches,  Vol.  II,  pp.  333-42  ;  Palestine 
Exploration  Fund,  Memoirs,  volume  on  Jerusalem,  pp.  345  ff.  ;  Quarterly 
Statements,   1886,   1S97  ;    Lewis,  Holy  Places  of  Jerusalem,  pp.   188   ff. 


THE  AUTHOR  107 

recently  discovered ;  ^^  of  Solomon's  porch  ( 10 :  23)  ;  of  a 
city  called  Ephraim  (11:  54),  probably  the  Ephron  of  the 
Old  Testament  (see  Hastings,  Dictionary  of  the  Bible)  ; 
of  the  brook  Kidron  (18:1,  2;  cf.  Lightfoot,  Biblical 
Essays,  pp.  171  ff.)  ;  of  the  pretorium  of  the  procurator 
(18:28),  and  the  pavement  in  the  pretorium  (19:13); 
of  Golgotha,  the  place  of  crucifixion  ( 19  :  17)  ;  and  of  the 
garden  in  which  Jesus  was  buried  (19:41).  It  is 
specially  worthy  of  notice  that  several  of  these  references 
are  to  places  which  must  have  been  wholly  destroyed  or 
obscured  in  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  in  70  A.  D.,  and 
knowledge  of  which  could  with  difficulty  have  been  pos- 
sessed except  by  one  who  had  lived  in  Palestine  and  been 
familiar  with  Jerusalem  before  70.^'^ 

b)  The  same  thing  is  indicated  by  the  waiter's  appar- 
ently intimate  acquaintance  with  the  events  of  the  pro- 
curatorship  of  Pilate  (11  :49;   18:  12,  13,  31,  39). 

c)  Of  like  significance  is  his  familiarity  with  those 
Jewish  ideas  and  expectations  which  prevailed  among  the 
Jews  of  the  first  century,  but  were  not  shared  by  the  Chris- 
tians of  the  second  century  (1:21;  7:27,  40,  41;  the 
distinction  here  indicated  between  the  prophet  and  the 
Christ  was  early  given  up  by  Christians,  the  passage  in 
Deut.  18:15  being  referred  to  the  Christ,  as  in  Acts  3  :  22 ; 
7:37;   cf.  Lightfoot,  Biblical  Essays,  p.  25),  as  well  as 

^^  Mitchell,  "  The  Wall  of  Jerusalem  According  to  the  Book  of 
Nehemiah,"  Journal  of  Biblical  Literature,  1903,  pp.  85-163,  especially 
pp.  152  ff. ;  Bliss,  Palestine  Exploration  Fund  Quarterly  Statement, 
1895,  pp.  305  ff. 

"  Cf.  on  the  general  subject  of  the  geographical  references  in  this 
gospel,  FuRRER  in  Zeitschrift  fiir  neutestamentliche  Wisscnschaft,  1902, 
pp.  257-65,  who  suggests  identifications  for  all  the  sites  named  in  this 
gospel,  in  a  number  of  cases  differing  from  those  suggested  above. 


io8  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  JOHN 

with  those  which,  though  not  rq)iidiated  by  the  Christians, 
were  no  longer  held  in  the  precise  form  in  which  they 
prevailed  among  the  Jews  of  the  first  century  ( i  :  49 ;  12  : 
13;  cf.  Psalms  of  Solomon,  17). 

d)  But,  on  the  other  hand,  there  are  indications 
scarcely  less  clear  that  the  author  no  longer  counts  him- 
self with  the  Jews,  and  that  he  has  come  into  contact  with 
a  type  of  thought  by  which  he  would  be  much  more  likely 
to  be  affected  outside  than  inside  Palestine.  Thus  he  con- 
stantly speaks  of  the  Jews  in  the  third  person,  as  if  they 
were  quite  distinct  from  himself  {2:6,  13,  18;  3:1;  4:9; 
5:1,  10,  15,  16;  6:41 ;  7:15;  8:22,  etc.).  This  is,  no 
doubt,  in  part  the  reflection  of  the  fact  that  his  position 
as  a  Christian  quite  overshadows  his  merely  national 
character  as  a  Jew.  Yet,  many  of  the  Jewish  Christians 
who  remained  in  Palestine  continued  for  some  time  to 
feel  themselves  as  truly  Jews  as  ever.  And  the  constant 
employment  of  this  phraseology,  so  much  more  fre- 
quent than  in  Matthew  or  Paul  (Matt.  28:  15;  i  Thess. 
2 :  14,  etc.),  implies  that  the  author  wrote  at  considerable 
distance  of  place  or  time,  or  both,  from  his  home  in  Pales- 
tine and  his  life  in  Judaism. 

Positive  indications  of  residence  outside  of  Palestine 
and  an  intimation  of  where  his  home  was  are  conveyed  in 
the  frequent  use  of  the  terms  and  forms  of  thought  which 
prevailed  in  regions  affected  by  the  Jewish-Greek  phi- 
losophy represented  to  us  by  Philo  Judeus,  and  reflected 
in  the  opposition  to  it  in  Paul's  epistle  to  the  Colossians. 
Such    words    as    "Word,"^^    "only-begotten,"    "life," 

"  The  basis  of  this  usage  is,  of  course,  to  be  found  in  the  Old 
Testament,  remotely  perhaps  in  such  passages  as  Gen.  i  :  3,  and  more 
directly  in  such  as  Pss.  33:6;  107:20;  147:15;  148:5;  Isa.  SS:"- 
Some   writers  —  Westcott,    Godet,    Reynolds,    ct   al. —  think    that   John's 


THE  AUTHOR  109 

"light,"  "darkness,"  "truth,"  "paraclete,"  are  common 
to  Philo  and  John,  though  conspicuously  absent  from,  or 
employed  in  a  different  way  in,  the  synoptic  vocabulary. 
Account  must  also  be  taken  of  the  indescribable,  but  per- 
fectly evident,  air  of  philosophical  or  abstract  thought,  so 
different  from  the  intensely  practical  ethics  and  religion 
of  the  other  gospels,  and  allying  this  book  with  Paul's 
letters  to  the  Colossians  and  Ephesians  more  closely  than 
with  any  other  New  Testament  book.  By  this  is  not 
meant  that  the  fourth  gospel  is  more  like  Philo,  either  in 
style  or  substance,  than  it  is  like  the  other  gospels.  On 
the  contrai^y,  the  resemblance  to  Philo  is  accompanied 
by  e\'en  more  marked  differences,  and  the  resemblances 
between  John  and  the  synoptic  gospels  in  real  spirit  and 
doctrine  are  far  closer  than  any  between  John  and  Philo. 
The  influence  to  which  the  writer  of  the  fourth  gospel  has 
been  subjected  is  one  of  atmosphere,  affecting  his  style 
and  vocabulary,  but  leaving  his  doctrine  essentially 
unchanged.  As  Paul  in  Colossians  joins  a  translation  of 
his  thought  into  the  terms  of  so-called  philosophy  with 
out-and-out  opposition  to  the  errors  of  that  philosophy, 
so  the  fourth  evangelist  apparently  avails  himself  of  a 
vocabulary  which  is  acquired  rather  than  native  to  him, 
without  thereby  accepting  the  doctrines  commonly  asso- 
ciated with  this  vocabulary. 

These  two  antithetical  lines  of  evidence  lead  us  to 
think  of  the  author  as  one  who  had  lived  in  Palestine  in 
the  first  part  of  the  first  century,  but  Avho,  before  he  wrote 

usage  is  derived  directly  from  the  Old  Testament.  But  Siegfried,  San- 
day,  Weizsacker,  Holtzmann,  Harnack,  Wendt,  et  al.,  hold  —  and  rightly, 
it  would  seem,  in  view  of  the  evidence  —  that,  while  the  author  of  the 
gospel  does  not  hold  the  doctrine  of  Philo,  his  usage  of  the  term  reflects 
the  influence  of  the  type  of  thought  seen  in  Philo. 


no  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  JOHN 

this  book,  had  been  for  some  time  in  non-Jewish  lands, 
and  in  an  intellectual  atmosphere  largely  affected  by  the 
Alexandrian  or  Judeo-Hellenic  type  of  thought;  or  else 
point  to  some  form  of  double  authorship.  The  simpler 
explanation  is,  hoAvever,  of  course,  to  be  preferred,  and  is 
apparently  adequate  to  account  for  the  facts  we  have 
thus  far  examined.  The  theory  of  divided  authorship  is 
not  excluded,  but  it  must  be  sustained  by  further  evidence 
before  it  can  demand  acceptance. 

3.  His  religious  position. —  That  the  author,  though 
a  Jew  in  nationality  and  one  who  had  been  somewhat 
affected  by  Judeo-Hellenic  philosophy,  was  yet,  above 
everything  else,  a  Christian  is  so  evident  throughout  the 
book  as  to  call  for  no  detailed  proof.  The  prologue  ( i  : 
1-18),  the  writer's  statement  of  his  purpose  in  writing 
(20:30,  31),  and,  indeed,  every  paragraph  of  the  gospel 
(see,  e.  g.,  3:16-21;  31-36;  12:35-43),  is  penetrated 
with  a  conception  of  Jesus,  and  of  the  significance  of  his 
life  and  work,  which  is  possible  only  to  a  Christian. 

4.  The  relation  of  the  author  to  Jesus,  and  to  the 
events  which  he  narrates,  as  reflected  in  his  narrative. — 
We  refer  now  not  to  direct  assertions  of  such  relation, 
but  to  the  indirect  indications  furnished  in  the  w^ay  in 
which  the  story  is  told. 

a)  The  author  constantly  speaks  as  if  he  were  an 
eyewitness  of  the  events  he  narrates.  The  passage  i  : 
19-51,  e.  g.,  while  in  some  respects  parallel  to  the  synoptic 
story,  adds  also  materially  to  that  story,  and  especially 
such  details  as  only  an  eyewitness  could  have  added  truth- 
fully (see  especially  i  :2g,  35,  39-42,  43).  He  alone  of 
the  evangelists  tells  us  of  the  numerous  but  untrustworthy 
disciples  that  turned  to  Jesus  in  Jerusalem   (2:23-25). 


THE  AUTHOR  1 1 1 

He  alone  tells  us  of  Nicodemiis,  and  setches  him  in  few 
words,  but  with  remarkable  verisimilitude.  He  alone 
informs  us  that  Jesus  for  a  time  baptized  (by  the  hands 
of  his  disciples,  3:22;  4:1,  2);  the  synoptic  gospels 
would  leave  us  with  the  impression  that  the  baptism  with 
the  Holy  Spirit  (of  which  this  writer  also  knows,  i  :33) 
was  Jesus'  only  baptism.  The  story  of  Jesus  and  the 
woman  of  Samaria  (chap.  4)  is  full  of  lifelike  touches, 
suggesting  that  it  is  from  the  pen  or  lips  of  one  who  was 
present.  The  account  of  the  events  that  followed  the 
feeding  of  the  five  thousand  (chap.  6),  so  wholly  unsug- 
gested  in  the  synoptic  narrative,  while  at  the  same  time 
helping  to  explain  the  withdrawal  into  northern  Galilee 
(Mark  7:24  ff.)  which  the  synoptists  alone  relate,  and 
so  wholly  true  to  probability  in  its  representation  of  popu- 
lar interpretation  of  the  Old  Testament  and  popular  views 
of  the  Messiah,  is  also  told  with  a  minuteness  of  detail  at 
certain  points  that  suggests  again  an  eyew'itness  author. 
The  account  of  events  connected  with  the  raising  of  Laza- 
rus is  full  of  similar  details,  relating  what  the  several 
persons  said  to  one  another,  where  they  stood,  etc.  So 
also  the  story  of  the  Greeks  who  sought  Jesus  relates  the 
precise  part  wdiich  the  several  disciples  took  in  the  matter. 
And  the  account  of  Jesus'  last  interview  with  his  dis- 
ciples (chaps.  13-17)  likewise  tells  what  Peter,  Philip, 
Thomas,  and  Judas  said.  The  account  of  the  arrest,  trial, 
and  crucifixion  of  Jesus,  while  clearly  parallel,  and  in 
part  identical,  with  that  of  the  synoptists,  adds  many 
graphic  but  incidental  details,  each  of  which,  where  it  can 
be  tested,  conforms  to  existing  conditions,  or  to  proba- 
bility (see,  e.  g.,  18:  i,  2,  10,  15  fif.,  26,  29-38;   19:4-16, 


112  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  JOHN 

20,  23,  39).^"  The  representation  of  the  book  respecting 
repeated  visits  of  Jesus  to  Jerusalem  is  different  from  that 
of  the  synoptists,  but  corresponds  with  probabihty,  and 
is  indeed  demanded,  as  the  explanation  of  that  which 
occurred  on  that  last  visit.^''' 

b)  An  eyewitness  —  one  to  whom  facts  of  this  char- 
acter were  known  of  personal  knowledge  —  could  hardly 
have  been  other  than  one  of  the  Twelve.  It  is  improbable 
that  one  outside  that  circle  would  have  possessed  the 
detailed  knowledge  of  so  many  events,  of  several  of  which 
the  Twelve  were  the  only  witnesses.  Certainly  no  other 
could  have  known  the  thoughts  of  Jesus  and  his  dis- 
ciples which  this  evangelist  records  (2:11,  17,  22;  4:6, 
2y;  13:22,  etc.).  Only  by  assuming  that  the  gospel 
contains  a  very  large  imaginative  and  fictitious  element 
can  one  avoid  the  conclusion  that  the  material  of  it  pro- 
ceeded from  an  eyewitness,  presumably  one  of  the  twelve 
apostles.  But  the  hypothesis  of  such  an  element  of  fiction 
is  rendered  improbable  by  the  historic  accuracy  of  the 
gospel  in  matters  in  which  it  is  possible  to  put  its  accuracy 
to  the  test. 

c)  The  gospel,  as  we  possess  it,  contains  direct  asser- 
tions that  the  author  of  the  narrative,  or  at  least  of  certain 
portions  of  it,  was  an  eyewitness  of  the  events  narrated 
(1:14;  19:35;  21:24).  Of  these  passages,  however, 
the  last  is  clearly  not  a  statement  of  the  author,  and 
belongs  therefore  to  external  testimonies   (see  p.   115). 

^''  See  the  evidence  that  this  author  is  an  eyewitness  much  more 
fully  stated  by  Watkins  in  Smith,  Dictionary  of  the  Bible,  revised 
Eng.  ed.,  Vol.  I,  pp.  1753  f.,  where,  however,  some  things  are  cited 
which  are  rather  evidences  of  an  editor's  hand. 

"  See  Stanion  in  Hastings's  Dictionary  of  the  Bible.  Vol.  II,  p. 
244a. 


THE  AUTHOR  113 

The  second  may  also  be  so  regarded,  but  the  evidence  is 
not  decisive.  It  is  ahnost  equally  possible  that  it  is  a 
statement  of  the  author  concerning  himself,^ ^  and  that  it 
is,  on  the  other  hand,  a  statement  of  one  who  therein  dis- 
tinguishes himself  from  the  person  who  is  the  source  of 
the  information,  the  author  of  the  statement  being  either 
the  final  author  of  the  book,  who  distinguishes  him- 
self from  the  author  of  the  sources,^*^  or  an  editor  who 
thus  comments  on  the  work  of  the  author.  In  the  for- 
mer case,  it  is  a  direct  afifirmation  by  the  writer  that  he 
was  present  at  the  crucifixion  of  Jesus,  and  as  such  of 
the  highest  significance.  In  the  latter  case,  since  it  is  the 
person  here  spoken  of,  not  the  one  who  speaks,  to  whom 
our  previous  evidence  applies,  it  becomes  a  testimony  of 
some  early,  but  to  us  unidentified,  scribe  or  editor  or  com- 
piler that  the  author  or  source  of  the  narrative  was  thus 
present.  It  is  important  to  observe  that  in  this  case  it  is 
the  testimony  of  a  contemporary  of  the  witness  to  whom 
it  refers,  the  tense  and  person  of  the  verbs  in  the  expres- 
sion "he  knoweth  that  he  saith  true"  implying  that  the 
author  of  the  narrative  was  still  living.  It  is  thus  only 
less  significant  on  this  interpretation  than  if  taken  as  a 
statement  of  the  author  about  himself.  In  1:14  there  is 
nothing  to  suggest  editorial  addition  —  it  is  clearly  the 
author  who  is  speaking  for  himself  and  his  associates. 
Though  the  first  person  plural,  "  we,"  may  be  interpreted 
to  mean  "  we  Christians,"  the  author  using  it  so  loosely 

'■'So  Meyer,  Alfokd,  Weiss,  Dods,  et  al.,  ad  he;  see  especially 
Steitz,  "  Ueber  den  Gebrauch  des  pronom-^Kervoy  ira  4ten  Evange- 
lium,"  Stiidien  iind  Kritiken,  1859,  pp.  497  ff. 

'■'So  substantially  Holtzmann,  ad  loc,  and  Wendt,  The  Gospel 
According  to  Joint,  pp.  211-13;  Weizs.\cker,  Apostolic  Age,  Vol.  II, 
pp.  209  ff. 


114  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  JOHN 

as  to  include  himself  with  the  eyewitnesses,  even  though 
he  himself  was  not  such,-"  it  is  more  probable  that  the 
writer  uses  it  in  its  obvious  sense,  as  implying  that  he 
himself  was  of  the  eyewitnesses.^^  The  indirect  evidence 
of  the  gospel  is  therefore  confirmed  by  the  direct  testi- 
mony of  the  author  that  he  had  seen  Jesus  and  had 
beheld  his  glory. 

With  this  result  we  might  for  our  present  purpose  be 
content,  since,  though  the  writer  is  not  by  this  evidence 
personally  identified,  the  knowledge  of  the  author  which 
we  most  need  to  assist  us  in  the  interpretation  of  the  book 
is  not  his  name,  but  his  historical  situation,  his  relation  to 
Jesus  and  to  the  facts  that  he  relates.  Knowing  these, 
it  is  of  less  moment  that  we  should  identify  him  indi- 
vidually. Yet,  even  his  name  is  not  without  its  helpful- 
ness in  the  interpretation  of  the  book ;  and,  as  an  appendix 
at  least  to  the  evidence  which  the  book  itself  furnishes  in 
its  disclosures  of  its  author's  characteristics,  point  of 
view,  knowledge  of  facts,  and  relation  to  them,  it  will  be 
well  to  consider  briefly  the  external  testimonies  to  his 
personal  identity. 

5.  Stafeuicnts  of  ancient  zcritcrs  concerning  the 
authorsJiip  of  the  book. — The  testimony  contained  in 
19:35  has  already  been  spoken  of.  If  it  is  an  editorial 
statement,  it  is  undoubtedly  the  earliest  testimony  we 
possess  from  another  than  the  author  himself.  But  it 
does  not  in  any  case  identify  the  writer  any  more  defi- 
nitely than  has  been  done  by  internal  evidence.  It  afiirms 
only  that  the  writer  was  an  eyewitness  of  the  event  there 
narrated,  not  who  he  was  nor  what  was  his  name. 

-■"  Cf.  the  two  instances  of    tj/jliv  in  Luke  1:1   f.,  which  is,  however, 
not  a  precisely  parallel  case. 
*'  Cf.  GoDET,  ad  loc. 


THE  AUTHOR  115 

The  first  clearly  external  testimony  is  that  of  21  124 
of  the  gospel : 

This  is  the  disciple  who  beareth  witness  of  these  things,  and 
wrote  these  things :   and  we  know  that  his  witness  is  true. 

Chap.  21  is  clearly  an  appendix  to  the  gospel  added  to  it 
after  it  had  once  been  completed  at  the  end  of  the  twenti- 
eth chapter  {cf.  iv,  "Plan  of  the  Gospel").  The  chap- 
ter as  a  whole  is  by  no  means  certainly  of  different 
authorship  from  the  rest  of  the  gospel.  But  vs.  24  is  by 
its  very  terms  not  a  statement  of  the  author  respecting 
himself,  but  the  testimony  of  others  affirming  who  he  is. 
Though  imbedded  in  the  gospel  itself,  as  we  now  possess 
it,  having  been  inserted  when  the  rest  of  the  chapter  was 
added,  or  perhaps  even  later,  it  is,  strictly  speaking, 
external  testimony,  not  internal  evidence.  Who  is  the 
author  or  authors  of  this  testimony,  or  when  it  was  added 
to  the  gospel,  cannot  be  definitely  stated. ^^  In  all  docu- 
mentary evidence,  even  the  oldest,  the  gospel  contains  the 
twenty-first  chapter  including  this  verse. 

The  testimony  of  this  verse  is  distinctly  to  the  effect 
that  the  gospel  is  from  the  hand  of  an  eyewitness  of  the 
events ;  that  he  was  one  of  seven,  five  of  whom  are 
named  and  are  of  the  Twelve  (21:2);  and,  more  specifi- 
cally, that  he  was  the  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved,  who 
leaned  on  Jesus'  bosom  at  the  supper  (21  :20,  24).  The 
internal  evidence  of  the  book,  and  the  statement  of  19 :  35, 
therefore,  are  confirmed  and  made  more  definite  by  this 
testimony  of  unknown  persons  inserted  in  the  appendix 
to  the  gospel. 

Not  even  yet,  however,  is  the  writer  spoken  of  by 

"^  Concerning  Weizsiicker's  interesting  and  certainly  not  improbable 
suggestion  see  p.  126. 


ii6  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  JOHN 

name.  If  it  might  be  reasonably  assumed  that  the  dis- 
ciple repeatedly  in  the  gospel  designated  otherwise  than 
by  his  name  ( I  140,  41 ;  13:23;  18:15,16;  19:26,27, 
35 ;  21  :2o)  is  always  the  same,  then  the  person  to  whom 
this  testimony  refers  conld  with  probability  be  identified. 
For  the  testimony  itself  refers  to  21  :  20,  in  which  the  dis- 
ciple that  Jesus  loved  is  spoken  of,  and  by  implication 
identifies  him  with  the  disciple  spoken  of  in  19 :  35.  Now, 
one  to  whom  these  passages  referred  could  hardly  have 
been  other  than  one  of  the  inner  circle  of  Jesus'  disciples 
—  James,  John,  Peter,  Andrew  (a  presumption  confirmed 
by  I  :40,  41 ;  21:2);  and  of  these  Andrew  is  excluded 
by  1 :  40,  Peter  by  2 1 :  20,  and  James  by  2 1  :  24,  coupled 
with  the  fact  of  his  early  death  (Acts  12:2),  making  it 
impossible  for  him  to  have  written  a  gospel  unquestion- 
ably the  latest  of  our  four.  But  the  chain  of  argument  by 
which  we  thus  conclude  that  the  disciple  whom  Jesus 
loved,  and  to  whom  the  witnesses  of  2 1  :  24  referred,  was 
John  the  son  of  Zebedee,  while  probably  leading  to  a 
right  interpretation  of  this  testimony,  contains  several 
links  not  irrefutably  strong.  For  the  name  of  the  author 
to  whom  antiquity  ascribed  this  gospel  we  must  look  to 
still  later  testimony. 

Definite  testimony  that  the  fourth  gospel  is  from  the 
hand  of  John  comes  to  us  not  earlier  than  from  the  third 
quarter  of  the  second  centui^y.^^  The  following  are  some 
of  the  earliest  and  most  striking  passages  in  which  the 
gospel  is  ascribed  to  John :  ,, 

Whence  also  the  Holy  Scriptures  and  all  those  who  bear  the 

^  Evidence  for  the  existence  of  the  gospel  is  much  earlier,  quite 
clearly  as  early  as  130  A.  D.  But  it  is  beyond  the  purpose  of  this  book 
to  discuss  the  complicated  problem  of  the  external  evidence. 


EDITORIAL  WORK  IN  THE  GOSPEL  117 

spirit  teach  us,  of  whom  John  (being  one)  says:  In  the  beginning 
was  the  Word,  and  the  Word  was  with  God,  pointing  out  that  at 
first  only  God  was,  and  in  him  the  Word.  Then,  he  says,  And  the 
Word  was  God,  through  him  all  things  were  made  and  without 
him  nothing  was  made.     (Theophilus,  Ad.  Autolycum,  II,  22.) 

Irenaeus,  having  previously  spoken  of  the  three  gospels 
and  their  authors  proceeds  : 

Afterwards  John  the  disciple  of  the  Lord,  who  also  leaned  upon 
his  breast,  did  himself  publish  a  gospel  during  his  residence  at 
Ephesus  in  Asia.     {Adv.  Hacr.,  iii,  i.) 

In  another  passage  he  says : 

John  the  disciple  of  the  Lord  ....  thus  commenced  his  teach- 
ing in  the  gospel :  In  the  Beginning  was  the  Word,  and  the  Word 
was  with  God,  and  the  Word  was  God,  etc.     {Adv.  Hacr.,  iii,  11.) 

II.       INDICATIONS    OF    EDITORIAL    WORK    IN     THE    GOSPEL 

The  evidence  that  tlie  fourth  gospel  came  from  one  of 
the  Twelve  is  then  full  and  strong;  and  tradition  at  least 
clearly  points  to  John  as  the  author.  Yet  it  is  necess^iry 
also  to  consider  certain  facts  which  seem  to  make  against 
the  theory  of  apostolic  authorship  in  the  strictest  and 
fullest  sense  of  the  term,  evidence  suggesting  the  possi- 
bility that,  though  an  apostle,  presumably  John,  was  not 
only  the  source,  but  in  a  sense  the  writer,  of  this  book,  yet 
the  book  perhaps  does  not  owe  its  present  form  to  him. 
In  connection  with  this  must  also  be  considered  certain 
evidence  which  may  either  make  against  the  strict  Johan- 
nine  authorship,  or  tend  to  show  that  the  material  of  the 
book  underwent  a  process  of  recasting  in  the  mind  of  the 
apostle  himself. 

I.  Reference  has  already  been  made  to  the  clear  indi- 
cation that  21  :24  is  from  the  hand  of  persons  who  defi- 
nitely distinguish  themselves  from  the  author  of  the  book, 


ii8  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  JOHN 

standing  as  sponsors  to  the  readers  for  his  trustworthi- 
ness, and  to  the  possibiHty  that  19 :  35  is  of  the  same  char- 
acter.-^ The  former  clearly,  the  latter  possibly,  show 
a  hand  other  than  that  of  the  author  of  the  material  con- 
tained in  the  book.  The  evidence  furnished  by  the  fact 
of  the  addition  of  chap.  21,  after  the  gospel  was  complete, 
will  be  discussed  in  a  later  paragraph. 

2.  The  use  of  the  title,  "  the  disciple  whom  Jesus 
loved"  (19:26;  21:20),  for  the  author  of  the  book 
points,  at  least  slightly,  in  the  same  direction.  That  asso- 
ciates of  John  in  the  latter  part  of  his  life  should  know 
from  himself  or  from  others  that  he  was  the  special  object 
of  the  Master's  affection,  and  that  they  should  call  him 
"  the  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved,"  is  not  at  all  improbable. 
But  that  he,  writing  with  his  own  pen  or  by  dictation  a 
book  whose  authorship  was  to  be  no  secret,  should  refer 
to  himself  as  "  the  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved,"  is  an 
improbable  immodesty,  strangely  at  variance  with  the 
modesty  which  on  this  supposition  led  him  never  to  men- 
tion himself  by  name. 

3.  In  several  particulars  this  gospel  gives  a  different 
representation  of  facts  connected  with  the  life  of  Jesus 
from  that  which  the  synoptic  gospels  present.  Thus  John 
the  Baptist's  characterization  of  Jesus  as  the  Lamb  of 
God  that  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the  world  is  so  wholly 
different  from  his  prediction,  recorded  in  Matthew  and 
Luke,  of  the  Greater  One  coming  to  swift  and  irremedi- 

'^*  Probably  not,  however,  in  any  case  from  the  same  hand.  The 
third  person  and  the  present  tense  in  19:  35,  "  he  knoweth  that  he  saith 
true,"  imply  that  the  witness  is  still  living ;  while  the  past  tense  in 
21  :  24,  "  that  wrote  these  things,"  and  the  use  of  the  first  person  in  the 
statement,  "  we  know  that  his  witness  is  true,"  suggest  that  the  witness- 
author  is  no  longer  living. 


EDITORIAL  WORK  IN  THE  GOSPEL  119 

able  judgment  that  it  cannot  but  lead  us  to  inquire  whether 
the  idea  expressed  by  the  Baptist  is  not  at  least  slightly 
modified  in  this  expression  of  it.  Again,  the  representa- 
tion of  this  gospel  concerning  the  announcement  of  Jesus' 
messiahship  is  sufficiently  different  from  that  of  the  syn- 
optic gospels  to  raise  the  question  whether  there  has  not 
been  in  this  matter  some  transformation  of  the  material, 
some  projection  backward  into  the  early  portion  of  the 
ministry  of  what  really  belongs  to  the  latter  part,  or  a 
substitution  for  one  another  of  terms  which,  when  the 
gospel  was  written,  had  long  been  looked  upon  as  prac- 
tically synonymous,  but  which,  when  Jesus  lived,  had  not 
yet  become  so.  The  difticulties  at  this  point  have  often 
been  exaggerated,  especially  in  respect  to  the  confession 
of  Nathanael,-^  but  it  remains  true  that  there  are  difYer- 
ences  which  demand  explanation.  C/.  John  3  128;  4:26, 
with  Matt.  16:  13-18.  In  minor  matters,  also,  there  is  an 
occasional  editorial  remark  which  it  is  difficult  to  account 
for  as  coming  from  an  apostle  of  Jesus.  See,  e.  g.,  4  :  44. 
which  by  its  position  seems  to  imply  that  Judea  was  Jesus' 
own  country,  though,  indeed,  this  is  not  the  only  possible 
interpretation  of  it.^" 

'■^  Cf.  the  very  useful  discussion  of  this  matter  by  Profess03 
Rhees  in  the  Journal  of  Biblical  Literature,  1898,  pp.  21  ff. 

="  It  is  a  tempting  suggestion  that  the  last  clause  of  18:28,  "but 
that  they  might  eat  the  passover,"  which  implies  that  the  passover  had 
not  yet  been  eaten,  whereas  the  synoptists  clearly  put  the  passover  on 
the  preceding  night,  is  an  editorial  comment  from  a  later  hand,  the  dis- 
crepancy of  which  with  the  chronology  of  the  synoptic  narrative  is  due 
to  the  editor's  ignorance  of  the  exact  facts.  But  the  evidence,  which 
apparently  grows  clearer  with  fuller  investigation,  that  the  Johannine 
chronology  of  the  passion^  week  is  alone  consistent  with  the  testimony 
of  all  the  gospels  respecting  the  day  of  the  week  on  which  Jesus  died 
and  the  evidence  concerning  the  Jewish   calendar  in   the  first  century. 


I20  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  JOHN 

4.  The  style  of  the  gospel  is  uniform  throughout, 
alike  in  narrative,  discourse  of  Jesus,  discourse  of  John, 
and  prologue  or  comment  of  the  evangelist.  This  style 
is,  moreover,  quite  different  from  that  which  the  synoptic 
gospels  attribute  to  Jesus  or  John.  Whose  style  is  this? 
Is  it  that  of  John  the  apostle,  or  that  of  the  men  whose 
hand  appears  in  the  "  we  know  "  of  21  :  24?  Or  is  it,  per- 
haps, the  style  of  Jesus  himself  which  John  has  learned 
from  him?  From  the  gospel  itself  we  could  perhaps 
hardly  answer  the  question.  But  a  comparison  of  the 
book,  on  the  one  hand,  with  the  style  which  the  synoptic 
gospels  all  but  uniformly  attribute  to  Jesus,  and,  on  the 
other,  with  the  first  epistle  of  John,  seems  to  point  the 
way  to  an  answer.     In  i  John  we  have  a  letter  which, 

tends  rather  to  the  conclusion  that,  whether  the  words  "  but  that  they 
might  eat  the  passover  "  are  from  author  or  editor,  they  are  at  least  in 
harmony  with  the  facts  respecting  the  relation  of  Jesus'  death  to  the 
celebration  of  the  Jewish  passover.  See  Preuschen  in  Zeitschrift  fiir 
neutestamentliche  Wissenschaft,  January,  1904;  Briggs,  Nezv  Light 
on  the  Life  of  Jesus,  pp.  56  fif.  Another  difference  between  this 
gospel  and  the  synoptists  concerns  the  chronological  position  of  the 
cleansing  of  the  temple.  But  here  also  the  evidence  tends  to  sustain 
the  accuracy  of  the  fourth  gospel.  By  the  expression  in  John  2 :  20, 
"  forty  and  six  years  was  this  temple  in  building,"  the  event  there 
referred  to  is  assigned  to  the  year  26  or  27,  barely  possibly  to  28  A.  D. 
(cf.  n.  3).  This  fact,  combined  with  the  increasingly  clear  evidence  that 
Jesus  was  crucified  in  the  year  30,  tends  to  the  conclusion  that  the 
cleansing  narrated  in  this  gospel  is  correctly  placed  as  it  stands,  and 
that,  if  there  was  but  one  cleansing  of  the  temple,  it  is  the  synoptists 
that  have  misplaced  the  account.  On  the  evidence  of  the  year  of  Jesus' 
death  see  Preuschen  as  above.  The  argument  by  which  Turner  in  the 
article  "  Chronology  of  the  New  Testament  "  in  Hastings's  Dictionary 
of  the  Bible,  pp.  411,  412,  seeks  to  establish  29  A.  D.  as  the  year  of 
Jesus'  death,  rests  upon  a  misinterpretation  of  the  evidence  of  the 
Mishna  as  to  the  method  by  which  the  beginning  of  the  Jewish  year  was 
fixed  in  the  first  Christian  century. 


EDITORIAL  WORK  IN  THE  GOSPEL  121 

though  it  uses  the  pronoun  "we"  in  tlic  first  paragraph, 
as  Paul  also  frequently  does,  because  he  includes  in  his 
thought  other  persons  than  himself  of  whom  his  state- 
ment is  true,-^  yet  is  evidently  the  letter  of  one  person 
(2:1,  12;  5:13,  etc.).  This  person,  moreover,  is  an 
eyewitness  of  the  life  of  Jesus  (1:1-4).  Now,  the 
vocabulary,  doctrine,  and  style  of  this  letter  are  very 
similar  tO'  that  of  the  fourth  gospel,  including  also  chap. 
21.  The  obvious  inference  from  these  facts  is  that  the 
gospel  throughout  —  not  necessarily  every  word,  but  in 
the  main  —  and  the  epistle  are  in  subject-matter  and  style 
from  one  hand,  and  that  that  hand  is  the  hand  of  an 
eyewitness  of  the  life  of  Jesus,  the  disciple  of  Jesus  who 
in  the  epistle  whites  in  the  first  person  singular,  who  in 
the  gospel  discloses  his  knowledge  of  the  things  with 
which  he  deals,  and  to  whom  the  authors  of  21  :  24  refer. 
It  follows  that  the  style  is  neither  that  of  editors  who 
have  put  the  book  together,^^  nor,  in  view  of  the  evidence 

^'  It  is  not  meant  that  Paul's  "  we  "  always  has  this  force  ;  it  is 
probably  sometimes  used  simply  for  "  I."  See  Dick,  Die  Schrift- 
stcllcrische  Plural  bei  Paulus  (Halle,  1900)  ;  cf.  Ligiitfoot,  Notes  on 
Epistles  of  Paul,  p.   22.     This  is  perhaps  also   the  case   in    i   John. 

^  The  only  escape  from  the  conclusion  that  the  style  of  the  book 
is  that  of  the  eyewitness  author  of  the  gospel  and  the  epistle  would  be 
in  the  contention  that  such  similarity  of  style  does  not  prove  identity  of 
authorship,  but  only  shows  that  the  various  writings  exhibiting  it  are 
from  the  same  school,  and  the  theory  that,  while  the  epistle  was  written 
l)y  a  member  of  that  school  who  was  an  eyewitness  of  the  life  of  Jesus, 
in  the  gospel  we  must  distinguish  between  the  eyewitness  source  of  the 
facts  and  the  non-eyewitness  writer,  ascribing  to  the  latter  the  style. 
Even  in  that  case  the  writing  of  the  book  would  be  carried  back  into 
a  school  some  members  of  which  were  eyewitnesses  of  the  life  of  Jesus. 
But,  in  fact,  there  is  little  to  recommend  such  a  view.  If  there  was 
an  eyewitness  who  could  write  the  first  epistle  of  John,  there  seems  no 
obvious  reason  why  he  may  not  be  the  author  as  well  as  the  source  of 
the  gospel.     Only  in  respect  to  chap.  21   do  the  facts  seem  to  furnish 


122  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  JOHN 

of  the  synoptists  respecting  Jesus'  manner  of  speech, 
that  of  Jesus.  From  this  again  follow  two  conclusions: 
First,  the  apostle  is  not  simply  in  a  remote  sense  the  source 
of  the  facts,  which  the  editors  have  wholly  worked  over 
into  their  style,  but  he  is  in  some  true  sense  the  author 
of  the  book,  the  one  who,  as  the  authors  of  21:24  say, 
"  wrote  these  things."  Second,  in  view  of  the  uniformity 
of  the  style  of  this  book,  covering  the  discourses  of  Jesus 
as  well  as  the  rest,  in  view  of  the  difference  between  this 
style  and  that  of  Jesus  in  the  synoptists,  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  its  identity  with  that  of  i  John,  there  is  no  room  to 
doubt  that  John  has  thoroughly  w^orked  over  into  his  own 
style — perhaps  the  style  of  his  later  years  —  his  remem- 
brance of  the  deeds  and  words  of  Jesus.  That  this  style 
\vas  learned  from  Jesus  is  a  theory  which  could  hardly  be 
absolutely  disproved,  but  which  is  not  suggested  by  any 
convincing  evidence.  That  the  synoptic  gospels  contain 
a  sentence  or  two  in  the  style  of  the  fourth  gospel  (see 
J\Iatt.  II  :2y;  Luke  10:22),  is  more  easily  explained  on 
the  supposition  that  the  synoptic  gospels  were  to  a  limited 
extent  affected  by  the  same  influence  that  created  the 
fourth  gospel  than  that  these  few  words  discover  to  us  the 
style  of  Jesus  and  account  for  that  of  the  fourth  gospel. 
5.  There  are  numerous  indications  that  the  arrange- 
ment of  the  material  of  which  this  book  is  composed  is 
not  wiiolly  from  the  hand  of  the  author  himself.     These 

any  support  for  such  a  theory.  The  evident  fact  that  this  chapter  was 
added  to  the  gospel  already  regarded  as  complete  at  20  :  21,  and  doulDtless 
after  the  death  of  the  author  to  whom  21  :  24  ascribes  the  preceding 
chapters,  does,  indeed,  suggest  that  it  is  from  a  different  hand  from  the 
rest  of  the  gospel.     See  further  in  n.  35,  p.  127. 


EDITORIAL  WORK  IN  THE  GOSPEL  123 

apparent  displacements  attracted  attention  long  ago,^°  and 
of  recent  years  have  been  the  subject  of  careful  study. 
Among  the  most  obvious  of  them  is  the  position  of  7 : 
15-24.  This  is  manifestly  connected  in  thought  with 
chap.  5.  The  Jews  apparently  take  up  in  7:15  a  state- 
ment of  Jesus  in  5 :  47,  and  the  whole  paragraph  1 5-24 
unquestionably  carries  forward  the  controversy  related  in 
chap.  5.  But  as  the  material  now  stands,  months  of  time 
and  an  extended  absence  of  Jesus  from  Jerusalem  fall 
between  the  two  parts  of  this  continuous  conversation. 
The  attachment  of  these  verses  to  the  end  of  chap.  5  gives 
them  a  far  more  natural  and  probable  position.  Inde- 
pendently of  this  case,  6 :  i  and  7 :  i  present  an  obvious 
chronological  difficulty.  In  6 :  i  Jesus  goes  away  to  the 
other  side  of  the  Sea  of  Galilee,  though  chap.  5  leaves  him 
not  in  Galilee  at  all,  but  in  Jerusalem.  And  7 :  i  states 
that  after  these  things  Jesus  walked  in  Galilee,  for  he 
would  not  walk  in  Judea,  because  the  Jews  sought  to  kill 
him ;  though  in  chap.  6  he  was  already  in  Galilee.  The 
transposition  of  chaps.  5  and  6  would  give  a  far  more 
intelligible  order  of  events.  Even  the  latter  part  of  chap. 
7  would  read  much  more  smoothly  if  vss.  45-52  stood 
between  36  and  }^'],  thus  making  the  officers  return  the 
same  day  that  they  were  sent,  rather  than,  as  it  now 
stands,  several  days  later,  as  well  as  yielding  in  other 
respects  a  more  probable  order  of  thought.  Combining 
these  suggestions,  we  should  arrange  these  chapters  in  this 
order  (after  chap.  4,  which  leaves  him  in  Galilee)  :  6: 
1-71;    5:1-47;    7:15-24;    7:1-13.  25-36,  45-52,  37-44. 

=*  Some  of  them  are  spoken  of  in  a  work  of  the  fourteenth  century : 
LuDOLPHUs  DE  Saxonia,  Vita  Cliristi,  referred  to  by  J.  P.  Norris, 
Journal  of  Philology,  Vol.  Ill  (1871),  pp.  107  ft'- 


124  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  JOHN 

That  7 :  53 — 8 : 1 1  is  from  some  outside  source  is  gener- 
ally admitted,  being  established  by  external  testimony  as 
well  as  by  internal  evidence.  The  insertion  of  this  pas- 
sage is,  of  course,  not  editorial  transposition,  but  scribal 
interpolation.^*' 

The  difficulties  of  arrangement  in  chaps.  13-16  have 
long  been  noticed,  and  one  of  them,  the  interposition  of 
the  long  discourse  of  chaps.  15-16  after  the  words,  "  Arise, 
let  us  go  hence,"  in  14:31,  is  obvious  to  the  most  casual 
reader.  Others  have  been  observed  by  more  attentive 
students,  such  as  the  evidence  in  14:25-31,  especially  in 
2j,  "  Peace  I  leave  with  you,"  that  these  are  intended  to 
be  the  closing  words  of  the  discourse;  and  that  16:5  can 
scarcely  have  been  spoken  after  the  question  of  14:  5,  but 
would  itself  naturally  give  rise  to  that  question.  These 
difficulties  are  greatly  relieved  by  supposing  chaps.  15,  16 

^°If,  on  the  basis  of  the  clearer  cases  mentioned  above,  it  should  be 
established  that  the  material  of  the  gospel  has  suffered  displacement, 
then  it  would  be  reasonable  to  interpret  the  less  clear  indications  in 
chaps.  8-10  as  showing  that  here  also  there  has  been  some  disarrange- 
ment. Thus  chap.  8  (omitting  vss.  i-ii)  begins  without  narrative  intro- 
duction with  the  words,  "  Again,  therefore,  Jesus  spake  to  them,"  as  if 
this  were  a  continuation  of  the  discourse  in  chap.  7.  But  the  theme 
of  8:  12  ff.  is  Jesus  as  the  Light  of  the  World,  which  is  suggested  by 
nothing  in  the  preceding  chapter,  and  is  clearly  related  to  chap.  9.  The 
paragraphs  10:19-21  and  10:22-29  also  occupy  a  position  difficult  to 
account  for.  A  rearrangement  of  this  material  that  will  at  once  com- 
mend itself  as  the  original  arrangement  can  hardly  be  offered.  But  the 
following  is  possible:  7:37-44;  8:21-59,  the  discourse  of  Jesus 
on  the  last  day  of  the  feast,  discussing  the  question  already  raised  in 
7 :  25-36,  whence  he  is,  whither  he  goes,  and  who  he  is ;  9 :  1-41  ; 
10:  19-21  ;  8:  12-20,  on  the  theme  Jesus  the  Light  of  the  World;  10: 
22-29,  1-18,  30-42,  a  chapter  on  the  one  theme:  Jesus  the  good  Shep- 
herd, and  his  relation  to  the  Father,  having  the  typical  structure  of  a 
Johannine  chapter,  viz.,  narrative  introduction,  discourse  of  Jesus,  dis- 
cussion with  the  Jews,  narrative  conclusion. 


EDITORIAL  WORK  IN  THE  GOSPEL  125 

to  have  stood  originally  either  after  the  words  "Jesus 
saith,"  in  13:31,  or  after  13:20.  It  has  been  further 
pointed  out  that  the  recognized  difficulties  in  18:12-28 
are  considerably  relieved  by  supposing  that  vss.  19-24 
belong  properly  after  vs.  13,  the  beginning  of  vs.  25  being 
a  repetition  of  the  end  of  vs.  18.  The  order  of  the 
Sinaitic  manuscript  of  the  Syriac  Version  (verses  12,  13, 
24,  14,  15,  19-23,  16-18,  25-31),  suggests  either  that  the 
present  order  was  not  the  original,  or  that  the  difficulty  of 
the  present  order  made  itself  felt  very  early. 

Spitta  accounted  for  these  transpositions  on  the 
theory  that  the  book  was  originally  written  on  papyrus 
sheets,  each  containing  approximately  eighteen  and  one- 
half  lines  of  the  length  of  those  of  the  Westcott  and  Hort 
text,  or  about  eight  hundred  Greek  letters,  and  that  by 
pure  accident  some  of  these  sheets  were  displaced  and 
then  copied  as  transposed.  It  is  certainly  remarkable  how 
many  of  the  pieces  which  are  out  of  place  are  either  about 
eight  hundred  letters  long  or  multiples  of  this  number.^^ 
Professor  Bacon,  recognizing  in  large  part  the  same  dis- 
placements, thinks  they  are  the  result  of  editorial  arrange- 
ment.^2  Without  undertaking  to  decide  which,  if  either, 
of  these  two  theories  is  correct  —  neither  one  of  them 
seems  to  account  for  all  the  facts  —  or  whether  all  the 
alleged  displacements  are  really  such,  we  are  constrained 

■''  See  Spitta,  Ziir  Geschichte  und  Littcratur  des  Urchristcntiims, 
Vol.  I,  pp.   157-204. 

^Journal  of  Biblical  Literature,  1894,  pp.  64-76  ;  cf.  also  his  article 
"  Tatian's  Rearrangement  of  the  Fourth  Gospel,"  in  American  Journal  of 
Theology,  1900,  pp.  770-95,  in  which  he  endeavors  to  show  that  Tatian 
had  a  gospel  differently  arranged  from  our  present  gospel.  In  criticism 
of  this  latter  article  see  Hobson,  The  Synoptic  Problem  in  the  Light  of 
the  Diatessaron  of  Tatian  (Chicago,  1904). 


126  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  JOHN 

to  admit  that  the  evidence  of  some  displacement  is  almost 
irresistible.  But,  if  so,  then  it  follows  that  some  other 
hand  has  been  at  work  upon  the  gospel  than  that  of  the 
original  author. 

6.  But  chap.  21  furnishes  at  once  a  problem  of  itself 
and  a  hint  for  the  solution  of  the  whole  matter.  This 
chapter  seems  clearly,  and  is  generally  admitted  to  be,  an 
appendix  added  after  the  gospel  was  felt  to  be  completed 
in  20:30,  31.  Now  Weizsacker  has  pointed  out  in  his 
Apostolic  Age  (Vol.  II,  pp.  209,  212)  that  the  motive 
for  this  addition  is  to  be  seen  in  21 122,  viz.,  in  the  fact 
that  the  death  of  John  seemed  at  once  to  discredit  both  the 
apostle  and  his  Lord,  since,  as  was  generally  supposed, 
Jesus  had  predicted  that  his  beloved  disciple  should  not 
die,  but  should  survive  till  his  coming.  To  obviate  this 
discrediting  of  Jesus  and  John,  this  chapter  is  published, 
pointing  out  that  Jesus  did  not  so  predict.  The  motive 
for  such  a  publication  would,  as  Weizsacker  says,  exist 
most  strongly  immediately  after  the  death  of  John,  From 
this  fact  he  draws  a  conclusion  in  favor  of  the  early  date 
of  the  gospel.  For  our  present  purpose  its  significance 
lies  in  the  fact  that  this  chapter  was  added  after  the  death 
of  John.  But  if,  as  already  argued,  the  style  of  this  chap- 
ter is  the  style  of  the  author  of  the  epistle  and  the  gospel, 
not  that  of  the  editors  who  speak  in  2 1  :  24,  then  it  follows 
that  this  chapter  existed  before  its  incorporation  into  the 
gospel.  And  this  in  turn  suggests  both  that  the  apostle, 
while  still  alive,  composed  chapters  of  a  gospel  —  "book- 
lets," if  you  please  ^^ — and  that  he  left  them  in  this  form, 
not  organized  into  a  gospel.     If  now  we  turn  back  to 

^Cf.  the  use  of  the  word  /3/^\os  in  Matt,  i  :  i,  referring  to  vss. 
1-17. 


EDITORIAL  WORK  IN  THE  GOSPEL  127 

examine  the  gospel  itself,  it  is  easy  to  imagine,  to  say  the 
least,  that  we  can  discern,  approximately,  the  lines  of 
cleavage  which  distinguish  these  booklets  from  one 
another,  somewhat  as  follows  :  ^^  Book  I,  i  :  1-18;  Book 
II,  I  :i9 — 2:  12;  Book  III,  2:  13—3:36;  Book  IV,  chap. 
4;  Book  V,  5:1-47;  7:15-24;  Book  VI,  chap.  6;  Book 
VII,  chaps.  7,  8  (with  omissions  and  transpositions  as 
suggested  on  p.  123  and  in  n.  30)  ;  Book  VIII,  chaps.  9,  10 
(with  changes  suggested  in  n.  30)  ;  Book  IX,  10:22-29, 
1-18,  30-42;  Book  X,  chap.  11;  Book  XI,  chap.  12; 
Book  XII,  chaps.  13-17  (as  arranged  above) ;  Book 
XIII,  chaps.  18-20;  Book  XIV,  chap.  21.^^ 

^'  The  book  numbers  are  not  intended  to  indicate  the  original  order 
of  the  books,  since,  according  to  the  suggestion  here  made,  they  existed 
originally  as  separate  books,  not  as  a  connected  series.  It  is  to  be 
supposed,  also,  that  the  introductory  phrases,  "  After  these  things,"  5:1; 
6:1,  etc.,  were  editorial  notes,  not  parts  of  the  original  books. 

^  If  it  should  be  made  clear  by  ancient  examples  that  such  similarity 
of  style  as  exists  between  chap.  21  and  the  rest  of  the  gospel  indicates 
no  more  than  that  the  writings  exhibiting  it  emanated  from  the  same 
school  of  writers,  then  the  inference  to  be  drawn  from  chap.  21  respect- 
ing the  original  form  of  the  rest  of  the  gospel  would  certainly  be  less 
obvious.  But  if  chap.  21  may  be  from  a  different  hand  from  the  rest 
of  the  gospel,  it  can  hardly  be  maintained  that  the  rest  of  the  gospel 
must  certainly  have  been  throughout  from  the  same  pen,  literally  from 
the  same  writer.  Instead,  there  is  suggested  to  us  the  possibility  that 
various  writers  of  the  same  school,  all  eyewitnesses  of  the  events  or  in 
touch  with  such  an  eyewitness — a  company,  e.  g.,  of  John's  disciples  — 
put  into  writing  different  portions  of  what  John  had  reported  and  taught 
about  Jesus,  and  that  the  gospel  was  made  up  of  these  various  writings, 
completed  with  chap.  20  before  the  death  of  the  apostle,  and  receiving 
the  addition  of  chap.  21  from  the  same  general  source  after  his  death. 
And  if  with  such  a  possibility  in  mind  we  examine  the  structure  of  the 
gospel  itself,  the  probability  that  it  existed  originally  in  separate  books 
will  seem  scarcely  less  than  on  the  supposition  of  unity  of  authorship 
throughout.  But  until  it  has  been  rendered  less  improbable  than  it  now 
seems  that  the  writings  even  of  writers  of  the  same  school  would  resemble 


128  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  JOHN 

If  now  we  attempt  to  combine  and  interpret  all  this 
evidence,  it  seems  to  point  to  the  following  conclusion: 
The  narrative  of  the  life  and  discourses  of  Jesus  proceeds 
from  an  eyewitness  of  the  events,  a  personal  disciple  of 
Jesus,  in  all  probability  John  the  son  of  Zebedee.  The 
whole  material  has,  however,  been  melted  and  recast  in 
the  mind  of  the  author.  Lapse  of  time,  change  of  sur- 
roundings, contact  with  a  new  type  of  thought,  desire  to 
make  Jesus  and  his  teaching  intelligible  to  the  men  with 
whom,  now  at  the  end  of  the  first  century,  he  has  to  deal, 
have  all  operated  to  make  the  book,  not  merely  a  narrative 
of  the  life  of  Jesus,  but  a  series  of  historical  sermons 
shaped  to  meet  the  needs  of  living  readers.  This  material 
left  the  hand  of  the  author,  moreover,  not  in  the  form  of 
the  book  which  we  have,  but  in  a  number  of  smaller  books. 
In  its  spirit  the  book  is  far  more  the  work  of  a  preacher 
seeking  to  de\^elop  spiritual  life,  than  of  an  historian 
seeking  to  produce  an  accurate  record  of  past  events. 
The  gospel  as  we  possess  it  shows  the  hand  of  an  editor 

one  another  as  closely  as  chap.  21  resembles  the  rest  of  the  gospel,  it  is 
reasonable  to  abide  by  the  conclusion  that  substantially  all  the  material 
of  the  gospel  is  from  the  same  author.  That  he  wrote  it  with  his  own 
pen,  or  dictated  it  to  an  amanuensis  need  not  be  maintained.  It  may 
well  be  composed  mainly  of  uttered  discourses,  written  down  by  hearers. 
The  similarity  of  style  implies  only  identity  of  authorship  —  but  of 
authorship,  not  simply  of  ultimate  and  remote  source. 

Professor  Bacon,  "The  Johannine  Problem,"  Hibbcrt  Journal,  Janu- 
ary, 1904,  p.  344,  has  expressed  the  opinion  that  "  The  similarity  of 
style  and  language  between  the  appendix  and  the  gospel  is  not  too 
great  to  be  fully  accounted  for  by  simple  imitation,  plus  a  revision  of 
the  gospel  itself  by  the  supplementing  hand,"  and  separates  the  com- 
position of  this  chapter  from  the  rest  of  the  gospel  by  a  considerable 
interval  of  time,  thus  apparently  excluding  the  hypothesis  that  it  pro- 
ceeds even  from  the  same  school  of  writers  as  the  rest  of  the  gospel. 
This  opinion  has  not  yet  run  the  gauntlet  of  criticism. 


THE    READERS  129 

or  editors  in  the  arrangement  of  the  material  which  he  or 
they  had,  and  possibly  of  a  careless  copyist  or  binder  in 
the  disarrangement  of  it.  The  precise  extent  of  the 
editorial  work,  and  the  exact  natnre  of  the  causes  which 
have  given  the  book  its  present  form,  are  as  yet  unsolved 
problems.  But  the  evidence  seems  to  show  tiiat  the  bulk 
of  the  material  exists  in  the  form  which  the  apostle  gave 
it,  even  the  style  being  his. 

These  facts,  if  facts  they  are,  do  not  disprove  the 
essential  unity  of  the  book,  nor  do  they  show  it  to  be 
based  upon  "  sources  "  in  the  usual  sense  of  that  term. 
They  indicate  that  the  book  is  mainly  from  one  hand,  but 
they  imply  also  that  we  may  expect  tO'  find  four  strata  of 
material,  or  rather  evidences  of  four  influences  at  work : 
first,  the  actual  deeds  and  words  of  Jesus;  second,  the 
apostle  melting  over  and  recasting  these  in  his  own  mind, 
and  adding  prologue  and  occasional  comment  or  summary 
(1:1-18;  3  ;  16-21,  31-36;  12:36^-43  or  50 ■'")  ;  third, 
the  work  of  an  editor  in  the  preparation  of  the  book  for 
publication ;  and  fourth,  possibly,  the  blundering  w^ork  of 
a  copyist  or  binder. 

III.       THE  READERS  FOR  WHOM  THE  GOSPEL  WAS 
INTENDED 

Internal  evidence  tends  to  show  that  the  readers  for 
whom  the  fourth  gospel  was  primarily  written  and  pub- 
lished were  not  Jews,  but  gentiles.     A  Christian  writer 

'"The  following  passages,  to  which  still  others,  chiefly  portions  of 
a  verse,  might  be  added,  are  also  of  the  nature  of  interpretative  comment 
on  the  history,  some  of  them  undoubtedly  from  the  hand  of  the  author, 
others  possibly  added  by  the  editors:  2:11,  21,  22,  25;  4:2,  9,  44; 
6  :  64*.  71;  7:39;  11:51,  52;  12:14/7-16,  33;  18:32;  i9:-24.  35. 
36,  Zl. 


I30  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  JOHN 

writing  for  Christian  Jews  might,  indeed,  occasionally 
speak  of  "the  Jews"  as  this  gospel  does  {cf.  Matt.  28: 
15),  but  a  Jewish  writer  writing  for  Jews,  even  Christian 
Jews,  is  not  likely  to  have  felt  his  and  their  distinctness 
from  the  Jewish  nation  so  strongly  as  to  have  used  this 
form  of  expression  with  the  frequency  with  which  it 
occurs  in  this  gospel.  The  explanation  of  Hebrew  terms 
when  they  occur  (1:41,42;  4:25;  19:13,  17;  20:16), 
and  the  manner  of  referring  to  Jewish  customs  and  senti- 
ments (2:6;  4:9;  7:2;  19:40),  point  in  the  same 
direction.  This  evidence  does  not  exclude  Jewish  readers, 
but  it  certainly  tends  to  show  that  the  readers  were  not 
wholly,  or  even  chiefly,  Jews.  To  this  must  be  added  the 
statement  of  20:31,  which  by  its  use  of  the  words 
"believe"  and  "have"  in  the  present  tense,  denoting 
action  in  progress  and  most  naturally  referring  to  the 
continuance  of  action  already  in  progress,  implies  that  the 
readers  are  Christians,  in  whom  the  writer  desires,  not  to 
beget  faith,  but  to  nourish  and  confirm  a  faith  that  already 
exists.  The  book  seems,  therefore,  to  have  been  intended 
chiefly  for  gentile  Christians. 

IV.       THE  PURPOSE  WITH  WHICH  THE  EVANGELIST  WROTE 

But  what  did  it  aim  to  accomplish  for  these  Chris- 
tians? The  verse  just  referred  to  contains  an  explicit 
statement  of  aim,  viz.,  by  the  narration  of  facts  respecting 
the  life  of  Jesus  to  lead  men  (presumably  already  believ- 
ers) to  believe  (/.  e.,  continue  to  believe)  that  Jesus  is  the 
Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  to  the  end  that  thus  believing  they 
may  (continue  to)  have  life  in  his  name.^^     Doubtless  it 

■"  The  theory  already  suggested  respecting  the  method  of  composition 
of  this  book  raises  the  question  whether  20:  30,  31  is  from  the  hand  of 


THE  PURPOSE  131 

would  be  an  over-pressing  of  the  force  of  the  tenses  in  this 
sentence  to  insist  that  the  book  was  written  solely  for  the 
maintenance  of  existing  faith  against  adversaries;  but 
that  this  was  a  part  of  its  purpose  is  certainly  more  than 
hinted.  If,  then,  we  turn  back  to  the  prologue,  i  :  1-18, 
in  which  we  may  naturally  expect  to  discover  indication 
of  the  purpose  of  the  book,  three  things  attract  our  atten- 
tion. First,  the  term  "  Word "  is  here  employed  in  a 
peculiar  way,  not  paralleled  in  the  other  portions  of  the 
gospel  or  in  the  first  epistle  of  John,^**  and  yet  introduced 
as  if  it  were  familiar  to  those  who  would  read  the  book.^'-* 

the  author,  being  intended  by  him  as  the  conclusion  of  this  particular 
book  (chaps.  18-20),  or  from  the  hand  of  the  editors,  and  intended  as  the 
conclusion  of  the  whole  work.  It  is  an  objection  to  the  former  supposi- 
tion that  no  such  conclusion  is  attached  to  any  other  of  the  "  books,"  and 
that  in  chaps.  18-20  "signs,"  in  the  sense  of  the  word  in  this  gospel,  are 
by  no  means  prominent ;  indeed,  there  are  none  in  the  usual  sense  of  the 
term.  It  is  against  both  this  supposition  and  the  view  that  the  author 
wrote  these  words  as  a  conclusion  of  the  whole  series  of  books,  or 
(setting  aside  the  particular  theory  here  advocated)  of  the  work  as  a 
whole,  that  the  gospel  itself  does  not  put  upon  the  signs  quite  the 
emphasis  which  this  verse  seems  to  give  them  icf.  2:23-25;  3:  1-3). 
It  is,  therefore,  most  probable  that  these  verses  are  from  the  editors, 
though  it  may  well  be  that,  except  in  the  use  of  the  word  "  sign,"  they 
have  correctly  expressed  the  purpose  which  the  apostle  had  in  view  in 
the  delivery  of  the  discourses  or  writing  of  the  books  which  they  have 
here  published. 

""The  use  of  the  phrase  "  Word  of  life"  in  i  John  1:1,  the  "pro- 
logue "  of  the  epistle,  is  approximately  parallel,  and  in  view  of  the  usage 
of  the  prologue  of  the  gospel  is  probably  to  be  traced  to  the  same 
influence  which  produced  this  ;  yet  it  is  only  approximately  parallel, 
involving  by  no  means  so  clear  a  hypostatizing  of  the  Word  as  that  of 
John  1  :  I  ff.  The  mode  of  speech  of  the  letter  even  is  doubtless  an 
acquired  one,  but  it  has  apparently  become  a  natural  one  for  the  apostle. 
This  can  hardly  be  said  of  the  phraseology  of  the  prologue  of  the  gospel. 

™  See  Harnack,  Zeitschrift  fiir  Tlwologie  und  Kirchc,  Vol.  II,  pp. 
189-231  ;    Wendt,  The  Gospel  According  to  John,  pp.  223-34. 


132  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  JOHN 

Tlie  purpose  of  the  writer  in  the  prologue  is  evidently  not 
to  introduce  to  readers  hitherto  unacquainted  with  them 
either  the  conception  of  the  "  Word  "  as  the  expression 
and  revelation  of  God,  or  the  person  Jesus  Christ,  but 
rather  to  predicate  the  former  of  the  latter.  These  facts 
indicate  that  the  writer  desires  to  avail  himself  of  a  con- 
ception more  congenial  to  the  thought  of  his  readers  than 
to  his  own,  in  order  to  set  forth  in  w'ords  familiar  to  his 
readers  the  doctrine  he  wishes  to  teach,  viz.,  the  unique- 
ness, finality,  and  all-sufficiency  of  the  revelation  of  God 
made  in  the  person  of  Jesus  Christ.  In  other  words,  he 
translates  into  a  current  vocabulary  and  mode  of  thought 
his  own  thought  about  Jesus,  in  order  by  such  translation 
to  render  this  thought  more  intelligible  and  more  accept- 
able. This  reminds  us  of  the  evidence  afforded  by  the 
letter  of  Paul  to  the  Colossians,  and  in  a  less  degree  by 
Ephesians,  that  the  gentile  Christianity  of  Asia  Minor 
was  subject  in  the  first  century  to  the  influence  of  a  certain 
type  of  philosophy  which  tended  to  dethrone  Christ  from 
his  place  of  supremacy,  and  that  Paul  was  led  in  opposing 
it  strongly  to  affirm  the  priority,  supremacy,  and  all- 
sufficiency  of  Jesus  Christ  as  the  revelation  of  God  and 
the  mediator  between  God  and  man  (Col.  1:15-20;  2: 
8  ff.,  16  ff.).  The  epistle  to  the  Colossians  gives  evidence, 
also,  that  this  philosophy  was  affected  by  the  same  con- 
ception of  the  intrinsic  evil  of  matter  which  later  appeared 
in  the  gnosticism  of  the  second  century  —  a  conception 
which  led  to  the  predication  of  numerous  intermediary 
beings  between  God  and  the  world  in  order  to  avoid 
attributing  to  God  the  evil  involved  in  creating  an  evil 
world.  This  tendency  is  triply  opposed  in  the  prologue. 
The  world  is  made  the  product  of  divine  activity  through 


THE  PURPOSE  133 

the  "  Word;  "  the  "  Word  "  is  the  only  mediator  between 
God  and  the  world ;  the  Word  is  himself  divine.  In  place, 
therefore,  of  the  long  series  of  intermediary  beings,  of 
whom  the  last  and  remotest  from  God  brings  the  world 
into  being,  it  is  the  doctrine  of  the  prologue  that  all  things 
became  through  the  Word,  who  was  in  the  beginning  with 
God  and  who  was  God. 

In  the  second  place,  we  discern  in  the  prologue,  in 
immediate  connection  with  the  employment  of  the  Philo- 
nean  term  "Word,"  a  denial  of  Philo's  doctrine."*"  To 
Philo  the  Word  was  a  philosophic  conception  rather  than 
a  reality  objectively  known,  the  joint  product  of  a  theory 
about  God  and  the  hard  fact  of  the  existence  of  the  world. 
Whether  objective  existence  was  predicated  of  this  prod- 
uct of  reflection  does  not  seem  to  be  wholly  clear;  per- 
haps Philo  himself  scarcely  knew.  But  at  best  the  Philo- 
nean  conception  of  the  Word,  instead  of  bringing  God 
near  and  making  him  more  real  to  men,  only  put  him 
farther  away;  the  Word  himself,  through  whom  alone 
God  could  be  known,  was  only  an  inference,  a  product  of 
thought.  No  man  had  ever  seen  him  at  any  time,  or  ever 
ccnild  see  him.  Philosophically  he  might  bridge  the  chasm 
between  God  and  man ;  practically  he  only  widened  it. 
Over  against  this  conception,  the  prologue  of  our  gospel, 
availing  itself  of  the  familiar  term,  but  converting  it  to 
the  uses  of  a  wholly  different  doctrine,  affirms  that  Jesus 
Christ,  the  historic  person,  is  the  God-revealing  Word, 
and  that  all  that  philosophy  vainly  dreamed  of  as  accom- 
plished in  the  unknown  and  unknowable  Word  has,  in 
fact,  been  wrought  in  that  the  eternal,  self-revealing  God 
has  incarnated  himself,  having  become  flesh  in  the  person 

■^  Cf.  McGiFFERT,  Apostolic  Age,  p.  488. 


134  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  JOHN 

of  Jesus;  and  Ave  beheld  his  glory,  the  glory  of  one  who 
reveals  God  as  an  only-begotten  son  reveals  his  father. 

In  the  third  place,  we  cannot  fail  to  see  in  vss.  6-9  and 
15  an  intention  to  oppose  the  doctrine,  evidently  held  by 
some,  that  John  the  Baptist  is  the  true  Messiah  and  revela- 
tion of  God.  Of  the  existence  of  a  John  the  Baptist  sect 
there  is  a  hint  in  Acts  19:3,  and  further  evidence  in  the 
Clou.  Recogn.j  I,  54.^^ 

Thus  against  a  tendency,  essentially  gnostic  in  char- 
acter, to  separate  God  from  the  world  by  the  intervention 
of  one  or  more  intermediary  beings,  against  the  Philonean 
notion  of  the  "Word"  of  God  as  a  mere  philosophic 
conception,  only  rhetorically  personified  and  never  for  a 
moment  identified  with  the  Messiah  or  conceived  of  as 
incarnate,  against  the  assertion  that  John  the  Baptist  is 
the  true  Messiah,  the  prologue  affirms  the  eternal  exist- 
ence of  the  "  Word  "  as  the  one  medium  of  God's  relation 
to  the  world,  his  incarnation  in  Jesus  Christ,  and  his 
messiahship.'*^ 

"  Here  Peter  is  represented  as  saying :  "  Yea  even  some  of  the 
disciples  of  John  ....  have  separated  themselves  from  the  people,  and 
proclaimed  their  own  master  as  the  Christ."  This  bears  witness  to  the 
existence  of  such  a  sect  in  the  latter  part  of  the  second  century.  But 
such  a  sect  could  not  have  sprung  into  existence  so  long  after  the  death 
of  John.  It  must  have  its  roots  in  a  much  earlier  time,  as  Acts  19:  3, 
indeed,  bears  witness  that  it  did  have.  Cf.  Hackett,  Acts,  ad.  loc; 
Wilkinson,  A  Johannine  Document  in  the  First  Chapter  of  Luke,  pp. 
21  fif.  See  on  this  whole  subject  Neander,  Church  History,  Vol.  I,  p. 
376,  and  the  commentaries  of  Godet  and  Westcott ;  contra,  Weiss.  In 
his  monograph,  Der  Prolog  des  vierten  Evangeliums,  1898,  Balden- 
SPERGER  has  maintained  that  opposition  to  the  John-cult  is  the  central 
purpose  of  the  gospel.  See  review  by  Rhees  in  the  American  Journal  of 
Theology,  April,  1899. 

*^  Godet  {Commentary  on  John,  Vol.  I,  p.  284)  finds  the  chief 
polemic    of    the    prologue    in    its    opposition    to    the    docetic    distinction 


THE  PURPOSE 


135 


But  this  is  not  all.  The  prologue  not  onl}^  affirms 
certain  propositions  about  Jesus  which  are  denied  by  the 
contemporaries  of  the  writer ;  it  is  in  entire  harmony  with 
20:  30,  31,  in  emphasizing  faith  in  Jesus  Christ  as  the  con- 
dition of  true  life,  here  represented  also  as  true  sonship  to 
God  (1:12,  i^). 

If  now  we  examine  the  body  of  the  gospel,  we  find  no 
further  reference  to  the  philosophical  heresies  contro- 
verted in  the  prologue,  but  a  controlling  emphasis  upon 
the  simpler  and  more  positive  ideas  of  vss.  12,  13. 
Indeed,  the  gospel  may  almost  be  said  to  be  summarized 
in  the  words  of  vss.  1 1-13  :  "  He  came  unto  his  own,  and 
they  that  were  his  own  received  him  not.  But  to  as  many 
as  received  himj  to  them  gave  he  the  right  to  become 
children  of  God,  even  to  them  that  believe  on  his  name: 
which  were  born  not  of  blood,  nor  of  the  will  of  flesh,  nor 
of  the  will  of  man,  but  of  God."  We  are  told  of  his 
appearance  among  his  own  people,  the  Jews,  of  their 
rejection  of  him,  first  tentative,  then  growing  more  and 
more  decisive;  of  his  acceptance  by  a  few  who  believed 
on  him,  and  the  Master's  reception  of  them  into  an  inti- 
mate fellowship  with  himself  and  with  God ;  and  through 
all  of  Jesus'  constant  insistence  that  in  him  is  life,  that  it 
is  imparted  to  those  who  believe  m  him,  while  they  who 
reject  remain  in  death.  We  cannot,  indeed,  overlook  the 
fact  that  in  the  early  part  of  the  gospel  there  are  repeated 

between  Jesus  and  the  Christ,  according  to  which  the  latter  descended 
into  Jesus  at  his  baptism,  but  left  him  and  reascended  into  heaven 
before  the  passion.  Harnack  also  (Zcitschrift  fiir  Theologie  und  Kirche, 
Vol.  II,  p.  217)  includes  this  anti-docetic  polemic  in  the  purpose  of  the 
prologue.  That  the  first  epistle  is  distinctly  anti-docetic  in  its  aim  there 
is  no  reason  to  question  (see  especially  i  John  5:6  flf.,  though  Godet 
interprets  vs.  6  as  directed  against  the  messiahship  of  the  Baptist).  But 
the  traces  of  such  polemic  in  the  gospel  are  slight. 


136  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  JOHN 

references  to  John  the  Baptist,  in  every  one  of  which  he  is 
represented  as  bearing  testimony  to  Jesus  or  refusing  to 
make  any  claim  for  himself,  declaring  that  Jesus  must 
increase,  but  he  himself  decrease  (1:19-35;  3:22-30); 
nor  can  we  fail  to  connect  these  passages  with  the  refer- 
ences to  John  in  the  prologue,  or  to  see  in  both  an  opposi- 
tion to  the  John  the  Baptist  cult.  Yet  these  passages  dc 
scarcely  more  than  bring  into  clearer  relief  the  otherwise 
constant  emphasis  on  the  life-giving  power  of  faith  in 
Jesus  Christ,  the  supreme  revelation  and  only-begotten 
Son  of  God. 

While,  therefore,  we  discern  in  the  prologue  evidence 
that  it  is  rather  a  bridge  from  the  gospel  to  the  readers 
than  a  summary  of  the  book  from  the  author's  own  point 
of  view,  and  while,  as  we  compare  the  prologue,  the  body 
of  the  book,  and  the  statement  of  purpose  in  20:30,  31, 
we  perceive  that  each  dififers  somewhat  from  the  other 
in  emphasis  or  minor  conceptions;  while  we  may  observe 
that  the  references  to  John  are  sufficiently  distinct  from 
the  rest  of  the  matter  to  constitute  possibly  a  distinct 
stratum  of  the  book;  yet  we  discern  also  that  the  book 
retiects  a  situation  which,  if  complex,  is  nevertheless  self- 
consistent,  and  a  unity  of  purpose  that  implies  the  domi- 
nance of  one  mind  or  of  a  group  of  minds  holding  sub- 
stantially the  same  doctrine  and  seeking  the  same  ends. 

If  we  seek  a  definition  of  that  purpose,  the  evidence 
leads  us  to  say  that  negatively  the  gospel  was  intended  to 
oppose  certain  conceptions  of  God  and  the  world,  akin  at 
least  to  those  of  Philo  and  the  Gnostics  —  conceptions 
which  belittled  or  excluded  the  w^ork  of  Christ  —  and 
incidentally  to  controvert  the  doctrine  of  the  messiahship 
of  John  the  Baptist:  but  that  this  negaiive  aim  was  itself 


THE  PLAN  OF  THE  GOSPEL  137 

subordinate  to  the  positive  object  of  so  presenting  Jesus 
in  his  deeds  and  words  as  to  show  the  danger  of  unbehef 
and  the  blessed  issue  of  faith,  to  the  end  that  the  faith  of 
behevers  might  be  confirmed  and  they  continuing  in  faith 
might  increasingly  possess  life  in  his  name. 

It  is  greatly  to  be  desired  that,  however  remote  we 
may  feel  ourselves  to  be  from  the  particular  errors  which 
this  gospel  originally  opposed,  it  may  still  attain  in  respect 
to  us  all  its  positive  and  dominant  purpose,  and  that  we, 
as  we  study  it  afresh,  may  believe  that  Jesus  is  the  Christ 
the  Son  of  God,  and  believing  may  have  life  in  his  name. 

IV.       THE    PLAN    OF   THE   GOSPEL 

The  structure  of  the  gospel  as  it  stands  seems  to  be 
the  result  of  three  facts :  the  purpose  which  the  evangelist 
had  in  mind  in  writing  and  the  editors  in  publishing  the 
book;  the  existence  of  the  material  as  it  came  to  the 
editors  in  the  form  of  isolated  chapters  or  books ;  and  the 
influences  already  referred  to  as  tending  in  some  unknown 
way  to  disarrange  the  material.  But  these  latter  influ- 
ences do  not  seem  to  have  obscured  the  plan  of  the  book 
beyond  the  possibility  of  easy  recognition.  The  purpose 
of  the  author  and  the  editors  to  set  forth  the  evidence  that 
Jesus  is  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  and  to  show  the  con- 
trasted effects  of  faith  and  unbelief,  is  clearly  discernible 
and  affects  both  material  and  structure.  The  following 
is  an  attempt,  on  the  basis  of  the  book  as  it  stands,  to  show 
its  original  plan  as  nearly  as  possible,  but  with  suggestions 
in  the  footnotes  of  possible  restorations  of  the  original 
order. 


138  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  JOHN 

ANALYSIS  OF  THE  GOSPEL 

I.  The  Prologue  of  the  Gospel:  The  central  doc- 
trines of  the  book  so  expressed  in  terms  of  current 
thought  as  to  relate  the  former  to  the  latter  and 
facilitate  the  transition  from  the  latter  to  the 
former.  i :  1-18 

II.  The  Period  of  Beginnings  :  John  bears  his  testi- 
mony; Jesus  begins  to  reveal  himself;  faith  is 
begotten  in  some,  and  the  first  signs  of  opposition 
appear.  i :  19—4 :  54 

1.  The  testimony  of  John  and  the  beginnings  of 

faith  in  Jesus.  i :  19 — 2 :  12 

a)  The  testimony  of  John  to  the  representa- 
tives of  the  Jews.  i  :  19-28 

b)  John  points  out  Jesus  as  the  Lamb  of  God 

and  the  one  whom  he  had  come  to  announce.        i :  29-34 

c)  John  points  out  Jesus  to  his  own  disciples, 

and  two  of  them  follow  Jesus.  i :  35-42 

d)  Jesus  gains  two  other  followers.  i :  43-51 
c)  In  Cana  of  Galilee  Jesus  first  manifests  his 

glory  in  a  sign  and  strengthens  the  faith  of 
his  disciples.  2  :  1-12 

2.  Jesus  in  Jerusalem  and  Judea :    opposition  and 
imperfect  faith.  2 :  13 — 3  :  36 

a)  The   cleansing   of   the   temple:     opposition 
manifested.  2:13-22 

b)  Unintelligent  faith,  based  on  signs,  in  Jeru- 
salem. 2 :  23-25 

c)  In  particular,   Nicodemus   is   reproved  and 
instructed.  3:  1-15 

d)  The  motive  and  effect  of  divine  revelation 

in  the  Son.  3  :  16-21  " 

e)  The  further  testimony  of  John  the  Baptist 

to  his  own  inferiority  and  Jesus*  superiority  3 :  22-30 

/)  The  supreme  character  of  the  revelation  in 

the  Son.  3:  31-36" 

*' Concerning  these  sections,  see  p.  129. 


ANALYSIS  OF  THE  GOSPEL  139 

3.    Jesus  in  Samaria,  and  the  beginnings  of  work 

in  Galilee.  chap.  4 

a)  Jesus'  self-revelation  to  the  Samaritan 
woman,  and  the  simple  faith  of  the  Samari- 
tans. 4 : 1-42 

b)  The  reception  of  Jesus  in  Galilee,  for  the 
most  part  on  the  basis  of  signs  seen,  but  in 

one  case  without  waiting  for  such  evidence.  4:43-54 

in.  The  Central  Period  of  Jesus'  Ministry,  to  the 
end  of  his  public  teaching:  Jesus  declares  himself 
more  and  more  fully,  many  believe  on  him,  and 
the  faith  of  his  disciples  is  strengthened,  but  the 
leaders  of  the  nation  reject  him  and  resolve  upon 
his  death.  chaps.  5-12 

1.  The  healing  of  the  impotent  man  at  the  pool  of 
Bethesda,  raising  the  sabbath  question,  and 
then   the    question    of   Jesus'    relation    to    his 

Father,  God.  chap.  5  " 

2.  The  feeding  of  the  five  thousand  and  attendant 
events  leading  to  the  discourse  on  Jesus  as  the 
Bread  of  Life,  in  consequence  of  which  many 
leave  him,  but  the  Twelve  believe  in  him  more 

firmly.  chap.  6. 

3.  The  journey  to  the  feast  of  Tabernacles,  and 
discussion  concerning  who  Jesus  is,  whence  he 

is,  and  whither  he  goes.  chaps.  7,  8  " 

4.  The  healing  of  the  man  born  blind,  and  the 
teaching  of  Jesus   concerning   himself  as   the 

"With  this  chapter,  7:15-24  was  probably  originally  connected. 
On  this  question  and  the  relation  of  chaps.  5  and  6,  see  p.  123. 

"  But  these  chapters,  as  they  stand,  apparently  include  three  sections 
that  do  not  properly  belong  to  them:  7:  15-24,  which  belongs  with  the 
fifth  chapter;  7:53 — 8:11,  which  does  not  properly  belong  to  this 
gospel,  though  doubtless  historical  and  probably  as  old  as  the  rest  of  the 
gospel ;  8:  12-20,  which  seems  to  belong  to  chap.  9.  Chap.  7:  25-52  has 
also  apparently  suffered  some  transposition.     See  pp.  123,  124,  and  n.  30. 


I40  THE  GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  JOHN 

Light  of  the  World  and  concerning  spiritual 

blindness.  chap.  9** 

5.  Discourse  of  Jesus  at  the  feast  of  Dedication 
concerning  himself  as  the  Good  Shepherd  and 

the  Door  of  the  Fold.  chap.  10  *' 

6.  The  raising  of  Lazarus,  and  the  teaching  of 
Jesus  concerning  himself  as  the  Resurrection 

and  the  Life.  chap.  11 

7.  Jesus'  last  presentation  of  himself  to  the  Jews 

of  Jerusalem.  chap.  12 

a)  Jesus  anointed  by  Mary  at  Bethany.  12:  i-ii 

b)  The  triumphal  entry.  12:12-19 

c)  The  coming  of  the  gentiles  to  see  Jesus : 
Jesus'  announcement  of  his   death  and  its 

results.  12:20-360 

d)  The  rejection   of  Jesus   by  the  Jews;    its 

nature  and  explanation."  12 :  366-50 

IV.    The  Fuller  Revelation  of  Jesus  to  His  Believ- 
ing Disciples.  chaps.  13-17 

1.  The  washing  of  the  disciples'  feet  by  Jesus,  and 

the  lesson  of  humility  and  service.  13 :  1-20 

2.  The  prediction  of  the  betrayal,  and  the  with- 
drawal of  the  betrayer.  13  :  21-310 

3.  The  farewell  discourses  of  Jesus.  it,:  ^ib — 16:33" 

4.  The  prayer  of  Jesus  for  his  disciples.  chap.  17 

*"  With  which,  however,  10:  19-21  and  8:  12-20  are  so  evidently 
connected  in  subject  as  to  suggest  that  they  originally  belonged  to  this 
chapter.     See  n.  30,  p.  124. 

"Originally,  perhaps,  arranged  10:22-29;  1-18  ;  30-42.  See  n.  30, 
p.  124.     Concerning  10:  19-21,  see  previous  note. 

^~'  Vss.  36i>-43  are  evidently  a  comment  of  the  evangelist  on  the 
meaning  of  the  events  that  precede.  Vss.  44-50  are  probably  his  summary 
of  Jesus'  whole  teaching  to  the  nation.  The  character  of  the  whole 
passage  366-50  indicates  that  it  is  felt  to  mark  the  conclusion  of  the 
history  of  Jesus'  offer  of  himself  to  the  nation. 

*"  Concerning  possible  restorations  of  the  original  order  here,  see 
pp.  124,  125. 


ANALYSIS  OF  THE  GOSPEL  141 

V.   The  Culmination  and  Apparent  Triumph   of 

Hostile  Unbelief.  chaps.  18,  19 

1.  The  arrest  of  Jesus.  18:  1-14 

2.  The  trial   before   the  Jewish   authorities,   and 

Peter's  denial.  18:  15-27'° 

3.  The  trial  before  Pilate.  18:28—19:  16 

4.  The  crucifixion. 

5.  The  burial. 
VI.    The  Triumph   of  Jesus  over  Death   and   His 

Enemies  :     The   restoration   and   confirmation   of 
faith. 

1.  The  empty  tomb. 

2.  The  appearance  of  Jesus  to  Mary. 

3.  The  appearance  to  the  disciples,  Thomas  being 
absent. 

4.  The  appearance  to  Thomas  with  the  other  dis- 
ciples. 

5.  Conclusion  of  the  gospel,  stating  the  purpose 
for  which  it  was  written. 

VII.    Appendix. 

1.  Appearance  of  Jesus  to  the  seven  by  the  Sea  of 
Galilee,  and  his  words  concerning  the  tarrying 
of  the  beloved  disciple. 

2.  Second  conclusion  of  the  gospel. 

"  See  p.  125. 


19: 

17- 

■30 

19: 

31- 

-42 

chap. 

20 

2C 

):  I 

-10 

20: 

;  II 

-18 

20: 

:  19 

-25 

20: 

126 

-29 

20: 

30, 

31 

chap. 

21 

21 

: :  I 

-24 

21: 

25 

INDEX 


Acts,  authorship  of,  54  f. 
Ancient  Testimonies,  8  f.,  30  f., 

55  f.,  88  f.,  114  ff. 
Aramaic    Words  :      in    Mark    29  ; 

in   the   New   Testament,   32   f. 
Augustine,  theory  concerning  the 

relation  of  the  synoptic  gospels, 

91. 
Augustus,    system    of    enrolments 

instituted  by,  68  f. 
Bethany  beyond  Jordan,   105. 
Bethesda,  pool  of,  106. 
Census  :     in  Egypt,  68  f. ;    in  the 

governorship  of  Quirinius,  70  ff. 
Chronology:  of  John,  loi,  119  f . ; 

date  of  Jesus'  birth,  67  f.,  73  f. 
DiATESSARON  of  Tatian,  8o,  90,  125. 
Displacements  in  John,  122  ff. 
Enrolment:    see  Census. 
EusEBius,      quotations      from,      9, 

30  f.,  88  f. 
Gadarenes,  country  of,  2  f.,  10. 
Gerasenes,  country  of,  2  f. 
Gospels,  titles  of,  in  ancient  manu- 
scripts, 8. 
Hebrew     Language  :      known     to 

author  of  first  gospel,  6  ;    known 

to  author  of  fourth  gospel,   105. 
Herodi.\s,  28. 
Herod  the   Great,    nature   of   his 

authority,  69  f. 
High-Priesthood,     references    to, 

in  the  gospels,  99  f. 
Historical     Material     used     for 

argumentative     purpose,     13     f., 

39  f- 
Iren.eus,     statements     concerning 

the  gospels,  30,  56,  117. 
Jacob's  Well,  106. 
Jerome,     testimony     concerning 

Mark,  31  ;    discussion  of  relation 

between    Hebrew    Matthew    and 

Greek  Matthew,  91. 


John,  Gospel  according  to:  na- 
tionality of  the  author,  99  flf. ; 
his  knowledge  of  Hebrew,  105  ; 
character  of  his  Greek,  105  ;  his 
residence,  105  ff. ;  his  religious 
position,  1 10;  relation  to  events 
narrated,  no  ff. ;  indications  of 
his  identity,  112  tf . ;  ancient 
testimonies,  114  ff.  ;  indications 
of  editorial  work  in  the  gospel, 
117  ff. ;  relation  to  the  synoptic 
gospels,  118;  uniformity  of 
style,  120  ff.,  127  f . ;  arrange- 
ment and  possible  displacements, 
122  ft'.;  chapter  21  an  appendix, 
126;  constituent  "booklets," 
127;  unity,  129;  intended  read- 
ers, 129  f.  ;  purpose  of  the  gos- 
pel, 130  ft'.;  purpose  of  the  pro- 
logue, 132  ft'. :  plan  of  the  gos- 
pel, 137  ff. ;  influence  of  Philo 
upon  the  gospel,  108  f.,  133  ; 
discussion  of  2  :  20,  loi  ff. ;  dis- 
cussion of  20:30,  31,   130  f. 

John  the  Baptist,  sect  of,  134. 

Justin  Martyr,  testimony  con- 
cerning the   gospel  of   Luke,   55. 

Latin  Words  in  Mark,  33. 

Literary  Methods  of  the  early 
Christian  period,  89  f. 

Luke,  Gospel  of  :  author's  pre- 
face, 46,  86  ff. ;  nationality  of 
the  author,  47  ft'.  ;  character  of 
his  Greek,  52 ;  use  of  sources, 
53  (cf.  86),  97  f •  ;  his  religious 
position,  53  :  evidence  of  his 
identity  derived  from  relation  of 
the  gospel  to  Acts,  54 :  testi- 
mony of  tradition,  55  f. ;  in- 
tended readers,  57  ff. :  purpose 
and  point  of  view,  59  ff. ;  plan 
of  the  book,  63  ff. ;  relation  to 
Matthew  and  Mark,  95,  97  f- : 
discusion    of    2:  1-5,    68    ff.  ;     of 


143 


144 


INDEX 


2  :  22-24,   74   ff-  ;    of  3  :  I,  67   f.  ; 
of  3  :  23,  67,  74. 
Luke,    New   Testament   statements 
concerning,   57. 

Mark,  Gospel  according  to:  na- 
tionality of  the  author,  2^  ff. ; 
his  relation  to  the  events,  29 ; 
his  religious  position,  29  ;  testi- 
mony of  tradition,  30  f.  ;  in- 
tended readers,  z^  f.,  40 ;  pur- 
pose of  the  writer,  j,},  ff.  ;  plan 
of  the  book,  41  ff.  ;  arrangement, 
chronological  or  topical,  39,  41  ; 
last  twelve  verses  of,  37  ;  rela- 
tion to  Matthew  and  Luke,  94  f., 
97- 

Mark,  New  Testament  statements 
concerning,    31. 

Matthew,  Gospel  according  to  : 
nationality  of  the  author,  i  ff.  ; 
his  religious  position.  8 ;  testi- 
mony of  tradition,  8  f. ;  in- 
tended readers,  10  ff.,  17  ;  pur- 
pose of  the  writer,  12  ff.,  20; 
not  a  Judaistic  gospel,  18  :  unity, 
19  ;  intended  to  meet  a  definite 
situation,  19  ;  plan  of  the  book, 
21  ff. :  sources  and  relation  to 
Mark  and  Luke,  95,  97  f. 

Mishna,  cited,  tt,  78. 

Muratorian  Fragment,  testimony 
concerning  the  gospel  of  Luke, 
56. 

Old  Testament:  use  of,  by  Mat- 
thew, 4  ff.,  II,  15:  use  of,  by 
Mark,  29  ;  use  of,  by  Luke.  49  f.  ; 
reference  to,  in  Luke  2 :  22-24, 
74  f. :    use  of,  by  John,  104. 

Oral  Gospel,  92  f. 

Papias,  his  statements  concerning 
the  gospels,  9,  30,  88  f.,  97  f. 

Philip,  son  of  Herod  the  Great, 
4,  28. 


Phu.o,    influence    upon    the    fourth 

gospel,  108  f.,  133. 
Philosophy:      opposed    by     Paul, 

109,      132;      attitude     of     John 

toward,   109,   132  ff. 
Presentation  in  the  Temple,  75. 
Purification,  law  of,  74  ff. 

QuiRiNius  :  date  of  governorship, 
T2  f.  ;    enrolment  under,  68  ff. 

Quotations  from  the  Old  Testa- 
ment occurring  in  the  gospels, 
5,   II,  29,  49  f.,  75,  104. 

Quotations  from  ancient  writers 
concerning  the  gospels :  from 
Eusebius,  9,  30  f.,  88  f.  ;  from 
Irenreus,  30,  56,  117;  from 
Jerome,  31  ;  from  the  Murator- 
ian frag;nent,  56  :  from  Theophi- 
lus,   117. 

Saturninus,  "JZ- 

Siloam,  Pool  of,  106. 

Son  of  Man,  35. 

Synoptic  Gospels  :  resemblances 
of,  81  ff.  ;  differences,  85  ;  facts 
respecting  relation  to  one  an- 
other, 82  ft".,  94  ft'.  :  theories  of 
origin  and  interrelation,  91  ff.  ; 
relation  to  fourth  gospel,  1 1 1  f., 
119. 

Tatian's  Diatessaron,  80,  90,  125. 

Temple,  rebuilding  of,   loi    ff. 

Testimony  of  ancient  writers  con- 
cerning the  gospels,  9,  30  f.,  88 
f.,   114  ff. 

Theophilus,  reference  to  the  gos- 
pel of  John,  1 17. 

Tir.ERius,  fifteenth  year  of,  50, 
67  L 

Wilderness  of  Judea,  i. 
■■  Word,"   doctrine   of   the.    108    f., 
131  ff. 


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A  short  introduction  to  the  Gospels. 

Princeton  Theological  Seminary-Speer  Library 


